The USA has urged Syrian troops to halt their advance by means of Kurdish-held territory in Syria’s north, amid clashes with Kurdish-led forces over strategic posts and oilfields alongside the Euphrates River.
The speedy advance of Syrian troops on Saturday got here after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to retreat east of the river, following latest preventing in Aleppo and areas east of town over stalled plans to merge the SDF into the Syrian state.
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Brad Cooper, who heads the US navy’s Central Command (CENTCOM), wrote on X that Syrian troops ought to “stop any offensive actions in areas” between town of Aleppo and the city of Tabqa, roughly 160km (100 miles) additional east within the Raqqa governorate.
On Saturday, the Syrian Military Operations Command instructed Al Jazeera Arabic that the navy had entered Tabqa, a strategic city close to a dam and a navy airbase. The SDF denied the declare, saying its forces have been “nonetheless of their positions” there.
‘Betrayal’
The SDF had mentioned it could pull again from the important thing cities of Deir Hafer and Maksana, in addition to some surrounding villages within the Aleppo governorate, whose residents are predominantly Arab.
Syria’s military took control of the realm on Saturday and accused the SDF of violating a withdrawal settlement by concentrating on a military patrol close to Maksana, “killing two troopers”.
The SDF, in the meantime, accused Damascus of violating the settlement by getting into the cities “earlier than our fighters had absolutely withdrawn”.
Later, Syrian troops superior additional, with state information company SANA reporting they’d expanded into the Raqqa countryside, getting into Kurdish-controlled cities and villages, together with Hneida, Rajm al-Ghazal, Mansoura and Zur Shamar, and imposing a curfew within the Maadan space, as they raced nearer to Tabqa.
The SDF accused Damascus of betrayal. “Heavy clashes proceed between our forces and Damascus factions, who violated the latest agreements and betrayed our forces in the course of the implementation of the withdrawal provisions,” it mentioned in an announcement, including that elements of Raqqa had been “subjected to artillery shelling and rocket hearth”.
However the SDF mentioned in an announcement on Saturday that Tabqa was “exterior the scope of the settlement” and that it could battle to maintain the city, in addition to an oilfield in its neighborhood.
Reporting from Aleppo, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi mentioned there was ongoing shelling within the Raqqa governorate.
“Judging by the quantity of weapons, the quantity of long-range artillery, the truckloads of ammunition we noticed entering into that path, it’s unsurprising,” he mentioned.
“There are fights ongoing for oilfields that have been managed by the SDF, so it is a very ongoing, energetic theatre of operations, and issues are shifting in a short time,” he added.
The Syrian Petroleum Firm mentioned on Saturday that it had taken over the al-Rasafa and Safyan oilfields from the Syrian Military shortly after troopers seized the areas of Deir Hafer and Maskana from the SDF.
Unresolved challenge
The US has needed to recalibrate its Syria coverage to steadiness years of backing for the SDF, with whom it was allied within the battle in opposition to ISIL (ISIS), and its help for the brand new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ousted Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.
US envoy Tom Barrack travelled to Erbil in the Kurdish area of northern Iraq on Saturday to satisfy with Abdi and Iraqi Kurdish chief Masoud Barzani.
The Kurdish area’s authorities welcomed a decree introduced on Friday that formally recognises the Kurdish language and restores citizenship to Kurdish Syrians, however mentioned that it wanted to be translated into regulation and enshrined within the structure.
From Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith mentioned that behind the “conciliatory phrases” lay the “unresolved challenge of methods to combine these tens of hundreds of closely armed, well-trained SDF fighters into the Syrian Military”.
“It was supposed to begin final 12 months. It by no means received going by the top of the 12 months. That’s what led to those clashes earlier in January,” he mentioned.
