"Not long ago, we discussed the issue related to Turkey's possible attack on Manbij with the US military which promised to retaliate against any assault on the city, regardless of who would launch this attack," Ebu Adil, commander of the Manbij Military Council within the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), stressed.
He said that the US-led coalition has been stationed in the city since it was liberated from Daesh* militants two years ago.
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Adil added that after Ankara statements about a possible Turkish military operation in Manbij, the US servicemen patrol cross-border territory neat the city around the clock.
"We, Manbij residents, are also poised to defend our city to the bitter end in the event of an attack. We took Turkey's threats of with all seriousness, carrying out all necessary preparations to repel a possible attack. But right now, the situation in the city remains calm," Adil concluded.
Earlier, he told Sputnik that deploying additional special forces to the region amid Ankara's plans to launch an attack on Manbij, the US had expanded its existing military base in the city and established a new one on the front line.
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Turkey's Anadolu news agency in turn reported about the establishment of two bases in the Manbij region, citing the deployment of about 300 US soldiers as well as a spate of armored vehicles and construction machines to the area.
Turkey aims to occupy Kurdish-held Manbij as part of its Operation Olive Branch, which kicked off on January 20, 2018.
Ankara blacklists the YPG — the backbone of the SDF — as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is outlawed in Turkey as a terrorist organization.
The US-led coalition has been launching airstrikes on Syrian soil since 2014, in an anti-Daesh* mission that was approved neither by Damascus nor the UN. Right now, an estimated 2,000 US troops are deployed in Syria.
The views and opinions expressed by Ebu Adil are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
*Daesh (ISIL/ISIS/Islamic State), a terrorist group banned in Russia