Persistent attempts of the PKK/YPG terrorists to infiltrate Syrian opposition-controlled cities in the country’s north were thwarted once again, local security sources reported Tuesday.
Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) forces fought off PKK/YPG members as they tried to penetrate their front lines to safe zones at three different points from positions in Tal Rifaat and Manbij, northern districts the terrorists have occupied for over seven years now.
The PKK/YPG terrorists launched artillery fire on several villages in the cities of Azaz and al-Bab in the Aleppo province bordering Türkiye, which opposition guards were watching over.
Sources said that one SNA soldier was killed and two others were injured in clashes, while the PKK/YPG had to withdraw after suffering casualties.
The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, recognized as a terrorist group by the United States, Türkiye and the European Union. However, Washington calls the YPG its biggest ally in driving Daesh, another terrorist group, out of Syria’s north and east over the last four years.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum created by the Syrian civil war in 2011 and with Washington’s help, the PKK/YPG has since 2015 occupied several Syrian provinces, including Arab-majority Deir el-Zour, a resource-rich region bordering Iraq, bisected by the Euphrates River and home to dozens of tribal communities.
The terrorist group has forced many locals to migrate, bringing in its militants to change the regional demographic structure, conducting arbitrary arrests, kidnapping children of local tribes for forced recruitment and assassinating tribe leaders to yoke local groups. It has also seized the region’s oil wells – Syria’s largest – and smuggles oil to the Syrian regime, despite U.S. sanctions, to generate revenue for its activities.
These tribes have been increasingly fighting against the PKK/YPG’s oppressive policies, a resistance that snowballed into armed clashes last month between the terrorists and Arab fighters.
Deir el-Zour clashes
Similarly, on Monday, local sources said the terrorists struck several Arab-controlled villages like Ziyban with drones, killing four children and injuring 10 civilians, as clashes erupted again earlier in the day.
The PKK/YPG deployed terrorists to the hot zones from Hassakeh to halt the clashes, while a U.S. military helicopter made a low-altitude landing along the battle line, sources noted. This was likely for a raid to capture a Daesh official in the region.
After a two-week lull, Arab tribes launched a counteroffensive in the countryside of Deir el-Zour on Monday.
In response, the PKK/YPG sent hundreds of militants and imposed a "curfew" to prevent the operations of Arab fighters from spreading across several towns.
Also on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters loyal to the Syrian regime clashed with PKK/YPG forces in a mainly Arab district of eastern Syria, leaving 25 people dead in two days.
The PKK/YPG claimed it had "driven out the regime gunmen who had infiltrated the Dheiban area” in clashes in Deir el-Zour.
Earlier this month, the same area saw 10 days of clashes between the PKK/YPG and Arab fighters, in which 90 people were killed, including 25 PKK/YPG terrorists, 29 members of Arab tribal groups and gunmen, as well as nine civilians. Clashes first erupted when pro-regime fighters crossed the Euphrates River – separating regime forces in southwestern Deir el-Zour from the PKK/YPG in the northeast – and the PKK/YPG kidnapped a local Arab military commander who had previously been an ally.
The terrorists also accuse the Syrian regime of inciting the violence by allowing the Arab fighters to cross the Euphrates. At the time, it claimed it had driven out the detained commander’s supporters among the area’s Arab tribes, insisting the dispute was "entirely local.”
According to the Observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria, some of the Arab fighters who fled to regime-held territory after the clashes earlier this month took part in this week's assault.
Two weeks ago, the Arab tribes liberated 33 villages from PKK/YPG occupation in operations in Deir el-Zour, as well as Raqqa and Hassakeh provinces and the rural areas of Manbij district in Aleppo.
However, to prevent civilian casualties, the tribes withdrew from these villages and sat down with Washington to negotiate.
The Syrian regime of Bashar Assad in Damascus sees the PKK/YPG forces as secessionist fighters. It has denounced its alliance with the U.S. in the war against Daesh and its self-ruled enclave in eastern Syria.
Meanwhile, Türkiye, which has troops inside Syria, and Turkish-backed opposition groups in Syria’s northwest routinely clash with the PKK/YPG, which seeks to establish a terror corridor along the country’s border.
Since 2016, Türkiye has carried out successive ground operations – Euphrates Shield in 2016, Olive Branch in 2018 and Peace Spring in 2019 – to expel the PKK/YPG and Daesh forces from border areas of northern Syria, as well as Iraq and to enable the peaceful settlement of residents.
Ankara has also repeatedly called on its NATO ally to cut off support to the PKK/YPG, something heavily weighing on bilateral relations.