But he said this does not amount to a “no fly zone”. “We, again, would advise them to steer clear in areas where we are operating”.
Advertisement
Defence officials said the Syrian planes were leaving as the coalition aircraft arrived, meaning they did not engage in combat, but that the USA would not hesitate to defend its forces.
The Observatory said thousands of inhabitants had begun to flee Hasakeh, where bread was running out and electricity supplies have been cut.
The incident Monday in the air above Hasakah, an area held by Syrian Kurdish forces battling ISIS, appears to be the closest military encounter yet between American and Syrian government forces in the two years since US jets began flying over Syria as part of a USA -led coalition’s fight against ISIS. Cook said there have been no similar incidents since Friday.
The coalition is now conducting additional combat air patrols in the region, he added.
“This was done as a measure to protect coalition forces”, Davis said.
“We will use our air power as needed to protect coalition forces in our partnered operations”, spokesman Peter Cook told reporters. Democratic Union Party (PYD)-linked the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) militia holds wide areas of northern Syria, where its political allies have set up an autonomous government since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. They must also be frustrated when their American allies have a perfectly good air force that is doing nothing to protect them from either Russian Federation or Syria.
Syrian authorities say they agreed a ceasefire, but the YPG denies entering into any truce.
USA defense officials had told CNN earlier that the military had pulled U.S. special operations forces from their northern Syria position after the Syrian military began bombing nearby, attacking Kurdish positions in and around the city of Hasakah.
Every indication is that the Kurds started this fight over Hasakeh, and that the military was more than content to leave the city jointly-held.
YPG-controlled areas of northern Syria include an uninterrupted 400 km (250 mile) stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border from the frontier with Iraq to the Euphrates river, and a pocket of territory in northwestern Syria called Afrin.
The regime and Kurdish forces share a common enemy in the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, but there have been growing tensions between them in Hasakeh.
Early on Thursday, ground forces tried to contact the pilots to make them stop their strikes, but without success. Xelil said dozens of civilians had been killed over the past two days.
Advertisement
USA forces then contacted Russia, which has been bombing parts of Syria for almost a year in support of Assad, but Russian military officials said the planes were Syrian. It’s a safe bet that President Obama would pull any forces we have embedded with the Kurds back from the action if there was a chance there would be American casualties. They provide training and also serve as advisers on military operations though the USA forces are not directly on the front lines.
