A US-led coalition sent aircraft to Hasakah city on Thursday to protect American special operation ground forces from attacks by Syrian government jets, a Pentagon official said on Friday.
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Thursday’s air strike, conducted by two Syrian SU-24 attack planes, targeted Kurdish forces who were undergoing training from USA special operations advisers in the area around the northeastern city of Hasakeh, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said.
None of the USA or coalition troops were injured or otherwise impacted Thursday by the Syrian airstrikes, Davis said.
The airstrikes mark the first time since the start of the country’s civil war in 2011 that Syrian government warplanes targeted a majority Kurdish enclave. The Syrian and Russian air forces are routinely deployed in the war in western Syria.
Thursday’s encounter occurred as two Syrian fighter jets dropped bombs outside of Hasakah, apparently in support of Syrian regime forces that were fighting the Syrian Kurdish forces.
The airstrikes on Kurdish-controlled positions in the city were the first time government aircraft had struck the city, Kurdish officials and activists said.
Davis said coalition forces attempted to reach the pilots of the Russian-made jets on the appropriate radio frequency but got no response – leaving them confused as to the bombers’ intentions.
Thousands of civilians have been fleeing the Kurdish-majority city, Hasaka, since the Syrian airstrikes started on Thursday, which witnesses said have killed dozens of people. “The Syrian Regime would be well advised not to interfere with Coalition forces or its partners”, he added.
Capt Davis told journalists that the United States had warned Syria via its communication channel with Russian Federation that it would defend coalition troops.
Naser Haj Mansour, a Kurdish official in the YPG-affiliated Syria Democratic Forces alliance, said Kurdish forces had taken some additional positions, including an economics college.
In a statement, the military command said the Asayish were aiming to take control of Hasaka city, and the army had responded appropriately by firing at armed groups’ “sources of fire”.
Fighting in Hasakeh comes less than a week after the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella of Arab and Kurdish militia, retook the strategic city of Manbij from the “Islamic State”. Ankara also considers the YPG a terrorist organization because of its links to Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
While the YPG controls most of the northeast, the Syrian government has maintained footholds in the cities of Hasaka and Qamishli at the border with Turkey. The office of the UN Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, said several children were among those evacuated Friday from the towns of Foua and Madaya.
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Since 2012, the Kurdish region has been administrated by local Kurdish forces after government troops largely withdrew to focus on fighting rebels elsewhere. Speaking from Qamishli, he said that there were calls through mosques loudspeakers for the evacuation of civilians stuck in the areas of fighting.
