From 2018 to 2024, after an agreement with the SDF, the Syrian Arab Army had been deployed on the city's periphery as a buffer between the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria and the AANES.

On December 9, 2024, it was reported that the city came under the control of the Syrian Interim Government after a deal was reached between the U.S. and Turkey to allow the safe exit of SDF fighters.

According to the De Dea Syria, the worship was of a phallic character, votaries offering little male figures of wood and bronze.

A great bronze altar stood in front, set about with statues, and in the forecourt lived numerous sacred animals and birds (but not swine) used for sacrifice.

The lake was the centre of sacred festivities and it was customary for votaries to swim out and decorate an altar standing in the middle of the water.

[15] The sanctuary of Atargatis predates the Macedonian conquest, as it seems that the city was the center of a dynasty of Aramean priest-kings ruling at the very end of the Achaemenid Empire;[16] two kings are known, 'Abyati and Abd-Hadad.

[17][18] The fate of Abd-Hadad is not known but the city came firmly under the Macedonian empire,[19] and prospered under the rule of the Seleucids who made it the chief station on their main road between Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris.

The coinage of the city begins in the 4th century BC with the coins of the priest-kings followed by the Aramaic series of the Macedonian and Seleucid monarchs.

She continues to supply the chief type even during imperial Roman times, being generally shown seated with the tympanum in her hand.

[13] The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid restored Manbij at the end of the 8th century, making it the capital of the frontier province of al-Awasim.

The Arab chieftain Salih ibn Mirdas captured it circa 1022, making Manbij, along with Balis and al-Rahba, the foundation of his Mirdasid emirate.

[22] In 1068, the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes captured it, defeated the Mirdasids and their Bedouin allies, killed the city's inhabitants and plundered the surrounding countryside.

[24] In 1124, Belek Ghazi tried to annex Manbij, after he had imprisoned its emir Hassan al-Ba'labakki, but he was hit and killed by an arrow during the siege.

[25] The Crusaders never captured Manbij during their 11th–12th century invasions of the Levant, but the Latin Church archbishopric of Hierapolis was re-established in the town of Duluk by 1134.

[28] In 1260, the Mongols under Hulagu destroyed Ayyubid Manbij, which was consequently abandoned by its Turkmen and Assyrian inhabitants as they migrated to Aleppo.

Henry Maundrell who visited Mambij in 1699 noticed a rock with large busts of a male and a female with two eagles below them.

[31] Before and in the early years of the Syrian Civil War, Manbij had an ethnically diverse population of Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen, and Circassian Sunni Muslims, many of whom followed the Naqshbandi Sufi order.

Tribal leaders served as the mediators and arbiters of major disputes in Manbij, while the state's security forces largely dealt with petty offenses.

While public administration including public schools has regained secular normalcy after the ISIL episode,[46][47] a reconciliation committee to overcome rifts created by the civil war was formed,[48] and international humanitarian aid has been delivered,[49] the democratic confederalist political program of Rojava is driving political and societal transformations in terms of direct democracy and gender equality.

[57] On 28 December 2018, the YPG asked the Assad government via Twitter to protect Manbij from attacks by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army.

[65] Since the takeover, Manbij has faced a sharp rise in security incidents and looting, mirroring trends in other areas under SNA control.

The following day, residents of the city conducted a general strike to protest the negligence of pro-Turkish factions in maintaining security and order.