ISLAMIC State extremists in the northern Syrian town of Manbij took 2,000 hostages yesterday to use as human shields as they fled north.

The Kurdish YPG militia besieging Manbij said the militants had fled the town towards their stronghold of Jarabulus on the Turkish border.

“They used these civilians as human shields as they withdrew to Jarabulus, thus preventing us from targeting them,” said YPG Manbij military council spokesman Sherfan Darwish.

There were unconfirmed reports that the US-led coalition had bombed the convoy after it left the town.

In nearby Aleppo, a convoy of 40 lorries delivered nearly 1,000 tons of food to the government-held west of the city, where an insurgent counteroffensive has cut the main supply route.

Syrian troops repelled a thrust by al-Qaida-allied militants west of Khanaser in southern Aleppo province aimed at cutting the supply line.

On Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry backed a United Nations proposal to bring aid into terrorist-occupied east Aleppo through army lines under “joint control.”

The government’s nightly three-hour humanitarian ceasefire was set to begin last night, but German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier demanded a weekly 48-hour pause yesterday.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran vowed to co-operate on resolving the Syrian conflict — the latest in a series of radical shifts in Ankara’s foreign policy following last month’s failed military coup.

The pledge was given after Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.