BEIRUT, LEBANON (11:45 A.M.) – United States military personnel operating in northern Aleppo province near the city of Manbij often come under fire from Turkey-led rebel groups and sometimes return fire themselves according to CNN reports citing official American sources.

CNN has reported, claiming to quote official US sources, that American combat units who carryout patrols along the contact-line between Turkey-backed rebel groups and Coalition-led forces in the countryside north of Manbij city ‘regularly’ come under fire by Ankara’s proxy militants and ‘occasionally’ return fire onto them.

CNN reports expanded to mention that US troops continue to conduct ‘overt’ patrols in the area around Manbij and that the last armed encounter with Turkey-led rebels was sometime in the last week.

In addition to its much publicized threat of invading the Kurdish-held Afrin region of Syria, the Turkish government has likewise constantly remarked about undertaking a similar incursion into the Manbij area in order to remove what it considers to be PKK-linked terrorists from the city.