US urges de-escalation as Syrian army advances on Kurdish-held territory
The United States has called on Syrian troops to halt their advances in Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria, amid clashes with Kurdish-led forces over strategic sites and oil fields along the Euphrates River.
The rapid advance of Syrian troops on Saturday came after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to withdraw east of the river following recent clashes in Aleppo and areas east of the city. stalled plans Uniting the SDF with the Syrian state.
Brad Cooper, who heads the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), wrote in
On Saturday, the Syrian Army Operations Command told Al Jazeera Arabic that the army had entered Tabqa, a strategic town near the dam and military air base. The SDF denied the claim and said its forces were “still in position” there.
‘Betrayal’
SDF announced that it would withdraw from important towns such as Deir Hafer and Maksana, as well as from some surrounding villages in Aleppo province, where the majority of residents are Arab.
Syrian army took control Authorities targeting the area on Saturday accused the SDF of violating the withdrawal agreement by targeting an army patrol near Maksana, “killing two soldiers”.
The SDF, meanwhile, accused Damascus of violating the agreement by entering towns “before our fighters have fully withdrawn.”
Syrian troops then advanced further; state news agency SANA reported that they expanded into the Raqqa countryside, entering Kurdish-controlled towns and villages including Hneida, Rajm al-Ghazal, Mansoura and Zur Shamar, and declared a curfew in the Maadan area as they approached Tabqa.
SDF accused Damascus of treason. The statement said, “Violent clashes continue between our forces and groups from Damascus who violated the last agreements and betrayed our forces during the implementation of the withdrawal provisions,” and added that some parts of Raqqa were “exposed to artillery bombardment and rocket fire.”
But the SDF said on Saturday that Tabqa was “outside the scope of the agreement” and that it would fight to protect the town as well as the surrounding oil field.
Reporting from Aleppo, Al Jazeera correspondent Zein Basravi said that the bombardment continues in Raqqa province.
“It’s not surprising, given the amount of weapons, the amount of long-range artillery, the amount of truckloads of ammunition we see heading in that direction,” he said.
“There are ongoing conflicts for oil fields controlled by the SDF, so this is a very ongoing, active area of operations and things are moving very quickly,” he added.
The Syrian Oil Company said on Saturday that it took over the al-Rasafa and Safyan oil fields from the Syrian Army, shortly after soldiers captured the Deir Hafer and Maskana regions from the SDF.
unresolved problem
The United States has had to readjust its Syria policy to balance its years-long support for the SDF, with which it is an ally in the fight against ISIS (ISIS), with its support for the new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Shara, whose forces overthrew Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.
US envoy Tom Barrack traveled to Erbil in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Saturday to meet with Abdi and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.
Authorities of the Kurdish region welcomed the decree announced on Friday: officially recognizes He said that he gave back the Kurdish language and citizenship rights to Syrian Kurds, but this should be turned into law and included in the constitution.
Al Jazeera correspondent Bernard Smith from Baghdad said that behind the “conciliatory words” lies “the unresolved issue of how to integrate tens of thousands of heavily armed, well-trained SDF fighters into the Syrian Army.”
“It was supposed to start last year. It never ended until the end of the year. That’s what led to these clashes in early January,” he said.
