article: Manbij sits on an intersection of roads linking the IS stronghold of Raqqa to the Turkish border and other areas under its control in Aleppo province. The routes have become key to the group's ability to move fighters, weapons and supplies into and out of Syria. On 31 May, a US-backed alliance of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters called the Syrian Defence Forces (SDF) began an operation to take Manbij and cut the supply routes. After some heavy fighting, Manbij was encircled and completely cut off earlier this month. We steered clear of the main roads leading to the town as our guides warned us that IS had planted mines and roadside bombs. So we bumped along on dusty side roads. On the way in we passed through Kobane, a town on the border with Turkey that was wrested back from IS control by Kurdish-led forces in January 2015, after a gruelling four-month battle. Much of Kobane is now in ruins and pictures of Kurdish fighters - both women and men - who were killed in the fighting festoon the wrecked buildings. As we get closer to the frontline near Manbij, some 55km (35 miles) to the south-east, we saw the first of the hundreds of civilians who have fled their homes since the fighting began. They were mainly Arab villagers, camped out along the roadside and flying white flags. When they saw an SDF vehicle, they ran forwards begging for food and water. A young SDF fighter, also an Arab, was clearly moved. "We are at the gates of Manbij now," he told us. "God willing, we will end Daesh injustice in Manbij and liberate our families and this city from them," he added, using an Arabic acronym based on the previous name of IS. We were taken to the site of an IS base which was recently destroyed in a US-led coalition air strike. The bodies of dead IS militants were still lying in the field. Kurdish fighters pointed out one who appeared to be Sudanese and another they said was a Chechen. One of the militants was still wearing a suicide belt. In death, his fingers were frozen inches from the detonator. Much of the SDF advance in this area was made possible by US-led coalition air support, and we could hear warplanes circling overhead. The air strikes are being directed by foreign special forces personnel on the ground, as we saw for ourselves when we ran into a group of them close to the frontline. They appeared to be French and American and told us to stop filming. The Kurdish fighters told us there were also British special forces operating in the area. Although air power has been decisive, it is not without cost. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, 49 civilians have been killed in air strikes since the offensive on Manbij began. Civilians are often caught in the crossfire on the ground too. In a field just behind the frontline, we came across a group of families huddled together for
summary: We travelled along the road to Manbij, a small town in northern Syria that has become the new frontline in the battle against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).