The Syrian army said it took full control of the town of Deir Hafir east of Aleppo on Saturday, after the withdrawal of the YPG terrorist group to the east of Euphrates River.
This came after deadly clashes erupted earlier this month between government forces and the U.S.-backed YPG terrorists in Aleppo. It ended with the evacuation of YPG terrorists from three neighborhoods taken over by government forces.
The Army's Operations Command told the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA): "We announce the full establishment of our military control over the city of Deir Hafir in the eastern Aleppo countryside."
Earlier on Saturday, the Syrian army announced that its forces had begun entering areas west of the Euphrates, starting with Deir Hafir. The military also captured the Jarrah airbase east of the town, and were on removing all mines and explosives.
The command noted that forces have now begun moving toward the neighboring areas of Maskanah and Dibsi Afnan, west of the Euphrates.
Over the past two days, more than 11,000 people fled Deir Hafir and Maskanah using side roads to reach government-controlled areas after the government announced it would launch an offensive to take the two towns.
On Friday night, after government forces started pounding YPG positions in Deir Hafir, the YPG leader Ferhat Abdi Şahin posted on X that his group would withdraw from contested areas in northern Syria. Şahin said YPG fighters would relocate east of the Euphrates River starting 7 a.m. (0400 gmt) Saturday.
The easing of tension came after U.S. military officials visited Deir Hafir on Friday and held talks with YPG members in the area.
The United States has good relations with both sides and has urged calm.
The YPG’s decision to withdraw from Deir Hafer was made after Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a decree Friday boosting the rights of the country's Kurds, who made up about 10% of Syria's population of 23 million before the civil war began in 2011. Over the past decades, Syria's Kurds had been marginalized and deprived of their cultural rights under the rule of the Baath party that ran Syria for six decades until Bashar Assad's fall in December 2024.
Al-Sharaa's decree recognized Kurdish as a national language, along with Arabic, and adopted the Newroz festival, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds around the region, as an official holiday.
