The contested town of Manbij in northern Syria has become the latest flashpoint in the seven-year conflict, as its main stakeholders rush to fill the vacuum left by the announced US withdrawal. Bashar al-Assad’s forces claimed to have moved into the mainly Arab town on Friday at the invitation of US-backed, Kurdish-led forces worried about an imminent Turkish invasion.

But a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) today dismissed as “incorrect information” the claim that the Syrian army had entered the city for the first time in six years. Instead, coalition sources tell Al-Monitor that regime forces were in Arima, just west of Manbij, and that they had merely increased their presence there.

Why it matters: The Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) wrested Manbij from IS control with coalition backing in August 2016. The United States promised Turkey that the YPG would move out as soon as the town was fully stabilized. But the Kurds have remained effectively in charge, wielding influence through YPG-friendly local administrative and military councils. This betrayal, as Ankara saw things, was among the main triggers for Turkey’s own incursion into northern Syria shortly after and has poisoned US-Turkish ties.

Turkey has since repeatedly threatened to attack Manbij, which lies west of the Euphrates River. With President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from Syria, the Kurds fear that Turkey will make good on its threats to wade in.