BEIRUT (AP) – United States (US)-backed Kurdish-led forces imposed a curfew after clashes erupted again yesterday in eastern Syria, where their fighters had battled for weeks with rival militiamen, Syrian media and activists reported.
The fighting in a region where hundreds of American troops are deployed has pointed to dangerous seams in a coalition that has kept on a lid on the defeated Islamic State (IS) group for years.
The reports said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) imposed the measure in several towns in Deir el-Zour province, including the town of Ziban, close to the Iraqi border where the Americans are based.
Hundreds of US troops have been there since 2015 to help in the fight against the militant IS group. The oil-rich province is home to Syria’s largest oil fields.
Al Mayadeen, a pan-Arab TV station, said several fighters from the Kurdish-led forces were killed after Arab gunmen took over several parts of Ziban yesterday.
Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some of the Arab fighters had crossed from government-held areas.
Local media in the province reported that some Kurdish fighters had fled the area as the clashes intensified.
The clashes first erupted in late August when two weeks of fighting killed 25 Kurdish fighters, 29 members of Arab tribal groups and gunmen, as well as nine civilians, according to the SDF.
The Syrian government of President Bashar Assad in Damascus sees the Kurdish-led forces as secessionist fighters and has denounced their alliance with the US in the war against IS and their self-ruled enclave in eastern Syria.
