{"id":27208,"date":"2018-12-28T10:22:55","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T10:22:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27208"},"modified":"2018-12-28T10:22:55","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T10:22:55","slug":"syrias-army-enters-manbij-state-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=27208","title":{"rendered":"Syria&#8217;s army enters Manbij: state media"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"92.4462365591\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">Syria&#8217;s army has entered the flashpoint city of Manbij, according to state media, after the country&#8217;s main Kurdish armed group invited government forces to take control of the area and protect it from a threatened Turkish offensive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">State-run Sana news agency said the army raised Syria&#8217;s flag in Manbij on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">It also pledged to guarantee &#8220;full security for all Syrian citizens and others present in the area&#8221;, according to Sana.<\/p>\n<p>The move came moments after the People&#8217;s Protection Unit, or YPG, made an appeal to President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s government to prevent a &#8220;Turkish invasion&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\" readability=\"7.66666666667\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">We invite the Syrian government forces to assert control over the areas our forces have withdrawn from, in particularly Manbij, and to protect these areas against a Turkish invasion.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OAkymO8s9Q\">https:\/\/t.co\/OAkymO8s9Q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rojava Defense Units | YPG (@DefenseUnits) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DefenseUnits\/status\/1078573294402588672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 28, 2018<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Turkey, which views the YPG as a &#8220;terrorist&#8221; group, had threatened a military operation against Manbij to remove the Kurdish-led forces there.<\/p>\n<p><span>It is not yet clear whether US troops, which had patrolled the area, remain in place or have withdrawn. There was no immediate response from the US-led coalition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The US had announced a full troop withdrawal from Syria last week. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Russia welcomed the Syrian army&#8217;s entry into Manbij.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of course, this will help in stabilising the situation. The enlargement of the zone under the control of government forces&#8230; is without doubt a positive trend,&#8221; said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<p>\n            SOURCE:<br \/>\n            <span>Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syria&#8217;s army has entered the flashpoint city of Manbij, according to state media, after the country&#8217;s main Kurdish armed group invited government forces to take control of the area and protect it from a threatened Turkish offensive. State-run Sana news agency said the army raised Syria&#8217;s flag in Manbij on Friday. It also pledged to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":27209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}