American fighter jets were sent to the area where the Syrian jets conducted the airstrikes, but by the time the US planes arrived the Syrian forces had flown away.
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Since Wednesday, the fighting had left 43 people dead including 27 civilians, among them 11 children, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
The main danger that arises is that, in order to salvage its intervention in Syria, the USA government and its allies will mount an even more reckless military escalation. The U.S. scrambled aircraft to protect the elite forces, raising the prospect that Washington and Damascus could have been in direct combat for the first time.
Syrian warplanes had carried out 46 sorties in the last 24 hours, including strikes in Aleppo that destroyed a tank, a vehicle loaded with ammunition and three mortar emplacements, and killed dozens of rebel fighters, a military source said. “They are trying to reinforce their positions”, said the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdel Rahman.
Kurdish fighters advanced in the flashpoint city of Hasakeh in northeast Syria after a Russian mediation bid failed to halt clashes with pro-regime forces, a monitoring group said Sunday.
A Kurdish journalist who is in Hassakeh, Heybar Othman, told the BBC that it was the first time the Syrian government had used air power against the city.
As soon as the strikes began, Kurdish ground forces unsuccessfully tried to hail the pilots via radio. He said the Syrian planes did not respond to efforts by ground forces to contact them.
“This was done as a measure to protect coalition forces”, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said. “We view instances that place the coalition at risk with the utmost seriousness and we do have the inherent right of self-defense”.
But the Pentagon warning appeared to fall on deaf ears as the Assad regime had turned its fire directly on to Kurdish-held territory, even though the government and the Kurds share a common enemy in ISIL. On Thursday, the U.S. “scrambled” – quickly launched – fighter jets to defend some special forces soldiers that were in the area, but did not have to engage in combat because the Syrian planes turned and left as they arrived. The coalition fighter jets were F-22 aircraft and came within 1 mile (1.6 km) of the Syrian planes.
The Pentagon said the US -led coalition aircraft were sent near Hasaka in response to the bombings to protect coalition special operation forces on the ground.
Britain’s United Nations ambassador says Russian Federation must follow up its announcement of support for weekly 48-hour cease-fires to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered to the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo with action to make this happen.
The Observatory also reported residents were fleeing the city before clashes picked up again in the afternoon.
The PYD and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) have rejected the entry of rival military forces, suggesting it could lead to “a civil war” among Syrian Kurds.
Last week, the Syria Democratic Forces, a coalition led by the YPG, captured the former IS stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria under the cover airstrikes by the US -led coalition.
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Elsewhere in Syria on Friday, two Russian warships operating in the Mediterranean Sea fired volleys of Kalibr cruise missiles at Nusra Front targets in Syria.
