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 on Sunday.
Advertisement
A USA -led coalition sent aircraft into northeastern Syria on Thursday in a “very unusual” move to protect American special operation ground forces from attacks by Syrian government jets, a Pentagon official said on Friday.
Kurdish, regime, and Russian officials met on Monday in the coastal Hmeimim air base to thrash out an agreement to put an end to the violence in Hasakeh. In October, Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired 26 Kalibr missiles at targets more than 900 miles away in Syria. Kurdish forces have asked the pro-government militias in the city to either surrender or face death, Kurdish forces and residents were quoted by Reuters as saying.
The regime and Kurdish forces share a common enemy in IS, which controls most of the Euphrates valley to the south, but there have been tensions between them in Hasakeh that have sometimes led to clashes.
Fighting escalated Thursday when regime warplanes bombarded YPG-held positions in the city for the first time.
Early on Thursday, ground forces tried to contact the pilots to make them stop their strikes, but without success.
The northeastern city has been rocked by deadly clashes between US-backed Kurdish forces and fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad since Wednesday.
Cook said the most recent warnings to Syria not to fly in areas near USA troops were communicated through the Russian military, which is operating in support of the Syrian government in its fight against opposition forces, including the Islamic State militants.
“We will always seek to protect our forces and we have an inherent right to ensure self defense if a situation dictates”, Air Forces Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Karns told Air Force Times Saturday.
But the Pentagon warning appeared to fall on deaf ears. The two US F-22 fighter jets got within a mile of the Syrian SU-24 aircraft and the Syrian jets saw them, then turned and left the area, the official said.
“We will continue to defend our forces in our fight against ISIL… and as our forces move in Syria and continue their partnered operations we will do what we need to do to protect our forces”.
Additionally, the US -led coalition contacted the Russian military through a communications link it has for air safety over Syria; the Russians said they did not have aircraft in the area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war using a network of activists, said civilians were using lulls in the fighting to flee the city.
Advertisement
In practice, the move is a dramatic escalation, and Cook’s arguing of semantics didn’t mean much of anything, as he spent the rest of the press briefing railing against the Syrian military for contesting control of Aleppo with al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, and insisted that the Kurds would continue to enjoy United States military support in the fighting.
