DEIR HAFER, Syria — Syrian government forces entered two northern towns Saturday morning after the command of Kurdish-led fighters said they would evacuate from the area, in an apparent move to avoid conflict.
Two soldiers were killed and others wounded in a clash as they entered the town of Maskana, state media reported. Clashes were reported in other parts of northern Syria as government forces pushed east.
Meanwhile, troops made their way into the town of Deir Hafer. The two towns changed hands after deadly fighting erupted this month between government troops and the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in the city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest. It ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods taken over by government forces.
An Associated Press reporter on Saturday saw government tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles, including pickup trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on top, entering Deir Hafer after bulldozers removed barriers. There was no SDF presence on the edge of the town.
The Syrian military said its forces were in full control of Deir Hafer, captured the Jarrah air base to the east and were in the process of clearing mines and explosives. It added that troops would move toward the nearby town of Maskana, where an AP reporter saw a military convoy rolling in hours later.
“Our happiness is beyond expression. It is the happiness of liberation,” said Hussein Mustafa as he welcomed troops entering Deir Hafer. He denounced the SDF, saying residents can celebrate now that government forces are in charge.
Another resident, Mohammed al-Jaber, said: “The Syrian Arab army came here and liberated us from this terrorist organization.”
For years, the SDF has been the main U.S. partner in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State group, but Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with Kurdish separatist insurgents in that country. Some of the factions that now make up the Syrian army were formerly Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
Withdrawal agreement
The SDF said in a statement that, according to an agreement, Syrian forces were supposed to enter Deir Hafer and Maskana after the Kurdish-led force ended its withdrawal.
“Damascus violated the terms of the agreement and entered the towns before our fighters had fully withdrawn, creating a highly dangerous situation with potentially serious repercussions,” the SDF said.
State news agency SANA reported that SDF fighters “violated the agreement” by targeting an army patrol near Maskana, leaving two soldiers dead and others wounded. SANA added that government forces kept moving east, reaching two villages in the northern province of Raqqa.
Over the last two days, more than 11,000 people fled Deir Hafer and Maskana using side roads to reach government-controlled areas, after the government announced an offensive to take the towns.
On Friday night, after government forces started pounding SDF positions in Deir Hafer, the Kurdish-led fighters’ top commander, Mazloum Abdi, posted on X that his group would withdraw from contested areas in northern Syria. Abdi said that SDF fighters would relocate east of the Euphrates River starting at 7 a.m.
Intervention of the Iraqi Kurdish leader
The easing of tension came after U.S. military officials visited Deir Hafer on Friday and held talks with SDF officials in the area. The United States has good relations with both sides and has urged calm.
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of the U.S. Central Command, in a statement Saturday evening welcomed ongoing efforts by all parties in Syria to prevent escalation and pursue resolution through dialogue.
“We also urge Syrian government forces to cease any offensive actions in areas between Aleppo” and the town of Tabqa to the east, Cooper said.
Aggressively pursuing Islamic State and relentlessly applying military pressure requires teamwork among Syrian partners in coordination with U.S. and coalition forces, he said.
Abdi was scheduled to hold talks with the U.S. special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on Saturday.
In Irbil, an official with Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP, said that its officials had asked the SDF to withdraw from parts of northern Syria, but the Kurdish force in Syria declined. According to the official, KDP leader Massoud Barzani communicated with interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who requested that Barzani act as a mediator — an initiative Abdi also accepted.
The official said Barzani’s initiative led to the expected meeting between Abdi and Barrack in Irbil, in which they will work toward an arrangement to keep SDF forces east of the Euphrates and prevent a return to fighting. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak with the media.
The SDF’s decision to withdraw from Deir Hafer was made after Al-Sharaa issued a decree Friday boosting the rights of the country’s Kurds, who made up about 10% of Syria’s population of 23 million before the conflict began in 2011. Over the last several decades, Syria’s Kurds have been marginalized and deprived of their cultural rights under the rule of the Baath Party that ran Syria for six decades until President Bashar Assad’s fall in December 2024.
Al-Sharaa’s decree recognized Kurdish as a national language, along with Arabic, and adopted the Newroz festival, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds around the region, as an official holiday.
The Kurdish-led authority in northeastern Syria said Saturday that the rights of Kurds should not be protected by “temporary decrees” but by mentioning them in the country’s constitution. It added that a decree “does not form a real guarantee for rights of Syria’s ethnic groups.”
Alsayed writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.
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