Abdi made the announcement in a post on social media.
Manbij has an Arab majority in the north east of Aleppo governorate. It is controlled by the Manbij Military Council, which includes local fighters, operating under the umbrella of the SDF, which is predominantly Kurdish and is supported by Washington.
A few days ago, Syrian factions loyal to Turkiye attacked the city and fought fierce battles with fighters from the Council. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the death toll on Tuesday night.
According to Abdi, the fighters from the Council will be removed from the area as soon as possible. His statement came shortly after the US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that its commander, Michael Kurilla, had visited Syria, where he met with senior officers of the US forces in the country as well as the SDF at several military bases.
Manbij is the second Arab-majority area, after Tal Rifaat, from which the SDF has withdrawn its forces since Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched an attack that began in northern Syria on 27 November and ended on Sunday with the fall of the Assad regime.
The two areas have been a target for years for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has long threatened to launch military operations to remove Kurdish fighters, who Turkey has branded as “terrorists”, from its borders.
On another front, the opposition factions led by HTS announced on Tuesday night that they had taken control of the city of Deir ez-Zor and surrounding areas, where Kurdish forces had advanced following the withdrawal of regime forces last week.
After 2012, the Kurds announced the establishment of an autonomous administration in their areas of influence (in the north and east) after the withdrawal of Syrian army forces.
These areas gradually expanded after Kurdish fighters, with US support, fought fierce battles to expel Islamic State terrorists.
The Syrian Democratic Forces were established in 2015, with the Kurdish People’s Defence Units as the backbone, as well as Arab and Syriac Christian factions, which now form the autonomous administration’s military wing.
The Kurds were excluded from all previous rounds of negotiations sponsored by the UN between representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition.
However, Mazloum Abdi said on Sunday that “the foundations of the political solution are taking shape now more than before,” referring to communication from the UN for the SDF to be part of the political solution. “Our goal is to have a ceasefire throughout Syria and engage in a political process for the future of the country.”