BEIRUT: Fighting between the Syrian army and Kurdish forces intensified late on Friday and into Saturday, creating the risk of yet another front opening in the multi-sided civil war.
The two sides have mostly avoided confrontation during the five-year conflict, with the government focusing its efforts against Sunni Arab rebels in the west, and the Kurds mainly fighting the militant Islamic State group in northern Syria.
In an indication of their reluctance to escalate further, pro-government media said on Saturday they had held preliminary peace talks.
After the fighting broke out this week, government warplanes bombed Kurdish-held areas of Hasaka, one of two cities in the largely Kurdish-held northeast where the government has maintained enclaves.
Fighting there could complicate the battle against IS because of the Kurds’ pivotal role in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF) fight against the group.
On Friday, warplanes from the US-led coalition flew what the Pentagon called protective patrols around Hasaka to prevent Syrian jets from targeting US special forces, who are operating on the ground with the SDF, the first sorties of their kind in the war. As well as complicating the war against IS, fighting in Hasaka could create problems for the government’s campaign in the city of Aleppo, where Kurdish forces have been accused of coordinating with the Syrian army against rebels backed by Turkey. The YPG, or People’s Protection Units, have close ties with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, against which Ankara has waged a three-decade counter insurgency.
Turkey fears the Kurds’ drive against IS is partly aimed at carving out a Kurdish region along its own southern border. In Aleppo, fighting continued near the mouth of a corridor that rebels opened this month into besieged areas they control.
Jakob Kern, the Syria director of the United Nations’ World Food Programme, said opposition-held areas had been inaccessible for weeks and food was running perilously short.
Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2016
