Syria Monitor Says Pro-Turkey Factions Attack Government, Kurdish Forces

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A Syria war monitor said pro-Turkey factions in the north killed government forces and attacked Kurdish fighters in Aleppo province Sunday, as a separate rebel alliance waged an offensive nearby.

Turkish forces and their proxies have controlled swathes of territory in northern Syria since Ankara in 2016 began successive ground operations to expel fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the pro-Turkey fighters launched their offensive on Saturday, with one goal being to cut Kurdish supply lines.

The Observatory said a coalition of Ankara-backed rebel groups seized control of the towns of Safireh and Khanasser southeast of Aleppo city, and also took the Kweyris military airport.

The “violent clashes with regime forces… resulted in the death of nine government forces”, said the Britain-based Observatory which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

North of Aleppo city, the Observatory reported “armed clashes” between Kurdish forces and pro-Ankara factions.

It did not immediately report casualties, but said pro-Turkey fighters shelled several villages in northern Aleppo province “where Kurdish forces are deployed”.

Kurdish forces there mostly control an enclave in the Tal Rifaat area, as well as some neighbourhoods in the north of Aleppo city.

Fighters from the US-backed, Kurdish-led SDF spearheaded the offensive that defeated the Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate in Syria in 2019.

Ankara sees the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominate the SDF, as an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The attacks come as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and allied rebel groups based in the Idlib area carry out a days-long offensive in northwest Syria, seizing large areas of government-held territory including Aleppo city, with the exception of its Kurdish-held districts.

The SDF in a statement accused Turkey of being behind the broad-scale attack, accusing it of seeking to “divide Syria”.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the rebel offensive in Syria with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Sunday, and said Ankara would support moves “to reduce tension”, a ministry source there said.

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