DEIR HAFER: Syria&#39;s army took control of swathes of the country&#39;s north on Saturday, dislodging Kurdish forces from territory over which they held effective autonomy for over a decade.&nbsp;The government appeared to be seeking to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/nine-dead-in-clashes-between-syrian-govt-kurdish-forces-in-aleppo" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">extend</a>&nbsp;its grip on parts of the country under Kurdish control a day after President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree declaring Kurdish a &quot;national language&quot; and granting the minority official recognition.&nbsp;The Kurds have said the move fell short of their aspirations.&nbsp;The army drove Kurdish forces from two Aleppo neighborhoods last week and took control of an area east of the city on Saturday, after implementation stalled on a March deal that was supposed to see Kurdish forces integrated into the state.&nbsp;Later on, Saturday, the Syrian army said it had &quot;begun entering the city of Tabqa via various axes, in parallel with encircling the PKK terrorist militias inside Tabqa military airport&quot;, according to the official SANA news agency.&nbsp;Authorities had earlier announced they had seized two oil fields near the city of Tabqa in Raqa province.&nbsp;An AFP correspondent in Deir Hafer, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Aleppo city, saw several fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) leaving the town and residents returning under heavy army presence.&nbsp;Syria&#39;s army said four soldiers had been killed, while Kurdish forces reported several fighter&rsquo;s dead, as both sides traded blame for violating the withdrawal deal.&nbsp;Kurdish authorities ordered a curfew in the Raqa region after the army designated a swathe of territory southwest of the Euphrates River a &quot;closed military zone&quot; and warned it would target what it said were several military sites.&nbsp;BetrayedSDF chief Mazloum Abdi on Friday had committed to redeploying his forces from outside Aleppo to east of the Euphrates.&nbsp;But the SDF said Saturday that Damascus &quot;violated the recent agreements and betrayed our forces during the implementation of the withdrawal provisions&quot;.&nbsp;It said Kurdish forces were clashing with troops in an area south of Tabqa, &quot;which was outside the scope of the agreement&quot;.&nbsp;The army meanwhile urged the SDF leadership to &quot;immediately fulfil its announced commitments and fully withdraw to the east of the Euphrates River&quot;.&nbsp;The SDF controls swathes of Syria&#39;s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during the country&#39;s civil war and the fight against the Islamic State group over the past decade.&nbsp;US envoy Tom Barrack met Syrian Kurdish leader Abdi in Erbil on Saturday, the presidency of Iraq&#39;s autonomous Kurdistan region said in a statement.&nbsp;The United States for years has supported the Kurds but also backs Syria&#39;s new authorities.&nbsp;The US Central Command on Saturday urged &quot;Syrian government forces to cease any offensive actions in the areas between Aleppo and al-Tabqa&quot;, in a post on X.&nbsp;France&#39;s President Emmanuel Macron and the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, called for deescalation and a ceasefire, the French presidency said.&nbsp;Presidential decreeSharaa&#39;s announcement on Friday was the first formal recognition of Kurdish rights since Syria&#39;s independence in 1946.&nbsp;The decree stated that Kurds are &quot;an essential and integral part&quot; of Syria, where they have suffered decades of marginalization and oppression under former rulers.&nbsp;It made Kurdish a &quot;national language&quot; and granted nationality to all Kurds, 20 percent of whom had been stripped of it under a controversial 1962 census.&nbsp;The Kurdish administration in Syria&#39;s northeast said the decree was &quot;a first step&quot; but &quot;does not satisfy the aspirations and hopes of the Syrian people&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;Rights are not protected by temporary decrees, but... through permanent constitutions that express the will of the people and all components&quot; of society, it said in a statement.&nbsp;In Qamishli, the main Kurdish city in the country&#39;s northeast, Shebal Ali, 35, told AFP that &quot;we want constitutional recognition of the Kurdish people&#39;s rights&quot;.&nbsp;Yara, 42, a Kurdish artist in Damascus who declined to provide her full name, said the government needed to &quot;provide guarantees to earn the Kurds&#39; confidence&quot;.&nbsp;Nanar Hawach, senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP that the decree &quot;offers cultural concessions while consolidating military control&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;It does not address the northeast&#39;s calls for self-governance,&quot; he told AFP, adding that &quot;Sharaa is comfortable granting cultural rights, but draws the line at power-sharing&quot;.&nbsp;He said Damascus appeared to be seeking &quot;to drive a wedge between Kurdish civilians and the armed forces that have governed them for a decade&quot;.

Middle East

Syria’s army expanded control over northern areas, clashing with Kurdish forces despite a decree recognizing Kurdish rights. Kurds decry betrayal, demand constitutional guarantees, while international actors call for de-escalation and ceasefire.

Syria army extends control over north as Kurds report clashes

DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities on Thursday said forces killed a senior leader in the Islamic State group and arrested another operative in fresh operations near capital Damascus in coordination with the US-led coalition. Syrian security and intelligence forces, working in coordination with the international coalition, conducted what the interior ministry described as a &quot;precise security operation&quot; in the Damascus countryside. &quot;The operation resulted in neutralizing the terrorist Mohammad Shahada, known as &#39;Abu Omar Shaddad&#39;, who is considered one of the prominent IS leaders in Syria,&quot; it added. &quot;This operation comes as confirmation of the effectiveness of joint coordination between the national security agencies and international partners.&quot; Later Thursday, the interior ministry said security forces &quot;in joint coordination with international coalition forces&quot; arrested &quot;the leader of a terrorist cell affiliated with the Daesh (IS) organization&quot; elsewhere near Damascus, seizing weapons and ammunition. Late Wednesday, authorities said they captured Taha al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tabiya, an IS leader in the Damascus region, along with several of his men, also in a joint operation with the US-led coalition. The interior ministry also said on Thursday that security forces had arrested three members of an IS-affiliated cell in Aleppo province. A December 13 attack killed two US soldiers and an American civilian. Washington blamed the attack on a lone IS gunman in Syria&#39;s Palmyra. In retaliation, US forces conducted strikes targeting scores of IS targets in Syria. The strikes killed five members of the jihadist group, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In November, during a visit by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to Washington, Syria officially joined the US-led coalition against IS. Sharaa is an Islamist ruler and a former jihadist whose group fought IS at the height of his country&#39;s civil war.

Syrian authorities said forces killed a senior leader in the Islamic State group and arrested another operative in fresh operations near capital Damascus in coordination with the US-led coalition

Syria claims killing senior IS leader, arresting operative near Damascus

DAMASCUS: Two American troops and a civilian interpreter were killed in central Syria on Saturday after an alleged member of the Daesh group opened fire on a joint US-Syrian patrol, officials said. &ldquo;We mourn the loss of three Great American Patriots in Syria,&rdquo; US President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform, vowing &ldquo;very serious retaliation.&rdquo; Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the attack took place in Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins and once controlled by Daesh during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria. The deadly attack had been &ldquo;an ambush by a lone Daesh gunman,&rdquo; who was &ldquo;engaged and killed,&rdquo; US Central Command said on X. Trump called it &ldquo;an Daesh attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them.&rdquo; Three other injured US troops were &ldquo;doing well,&rdquo; Trump said. The soldiers &ldquo;were conducting a key leader engagement&rdquo; in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack occurred, Parnell said, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted &ldquo;a joint US&ndash;Syrian government patrol.&rdquo; The deceased troops&rsquo; identities would be withheld until after their families were notified, CENTCOM said. The incident is the first of its kind reported since the group overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country&rsquo;s ties with the United States. Trump said Syria&rsquo;s new President, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who visited the White House last month, was &ldquo;extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.&rdquo; InfiltrationA Syrian military official who requested anonymity said that the shots were fired &ldquo;during a meeting between Syrian and American officers&rdquo; at a Syrian base in Palmyra. A witness, who asked to remain anonymous, said he heard the shots coming from inside the base. However, a Pentagon official speaking on the condition of anonymity told AFP that the attack &ldquo;took place in an area where the Syrian President does not have control.&rdquo; In an interview on state television, Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Anwar Al-Baba said there had been &ldquo;prior warnings from the internal security command to allied forces in the desert region&rdquo; of a potential Daesh &ldquo;infiltration.&rdquo; &ldquo;The international coalition forces did not take the Syrian warnings of a possible IS infiltration into consideration,&rdquo; he said. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, which has a vast network of sources inside Syria, the meeting came as part of an &ldquo;American strategy to strengthen its presence and foothold in the Syrian desert.&rdquo; SANA reported that helicopters had evacuated the wounded to the Al-Tanf base in southern Syria, where American troops are deployed as part of the Washington-led global coalition against Daesh. Last month, during Al-Sharaa&rsquo;s historic visit to Washington, Damascus formally joined the coalition. The group seized swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014 during Syria&rsquo;s civil war, before being territorially defeated in the country five years later. Its fighters, however, still maintain a presence, particularly in Syria&rsquo;s vast desert. US forces are deployed in Syria&rsquo;s Kurdish-controlled northeast as well as at Al-Tanf near the border with Jordan.

Americas

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell says the attack occurs in Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins, once controlled by Daesh during its territorial expansion in Syria.

Articles tagged with "syrian"

Syria army extends control over north as Kurds report clashes

Syria claims killing senior IS leader, arresting operative near Damascus

US troops in Syria killed in alleged militant ambush