Fighting was halted on Wednesday between Syrian government forces and a heavily armed Kurdish group that has seen American support erode, after the US intervened to save a ceasefire, sources on the two sides said.
The government, bolstered by Arab tribes and formations of former Turkish proxies from Syria's civil war, has squeezed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into pockets of land near Iraq and Turkey. The SDF has long been the most powerful rival of the central government, led by President Ahmad Al Shara. However, its importance as a US ally has diminished since forces led by Mr Al Shara ousted the Assad regime in December 2024.
A Kurdish official in the SDF said government attacks to pierce its defences around the city of Kobani, also known as Ain Al Arab, had stopped after a US-supervised meeting in Damascus on Tuesday night between Mr Al Shara and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi. Mr Al Shara is a former Al Qaeda operative who abandoned militant rhetoric and positioned himself as a US ally after winning power.
Government forces also stopped a push from the south to the north to isolate large cities still under Kurdish control from the border with the Kurdistan region of Iraq, the official told The National. "There was some shelling around dawn but the direct attacks have ceased," they said.
Talks between Mr Al Shara and Mr Abdi addressed the way in which the government would enter SDF areas in future, the official said. They also spoke about how far the military would stay from the overwhelmingly Kurdish-majority cities of Qamishli, Amouda and Kobani, as well as the provincial capital of Hasakah, which has a significant Kurdish population. The SDF might concede to government forces having a limited security presence in these areas.
"There are still sticking issues," the official said. Two Syrian officials confirmed the meeting between Mr Al Shara and Mr Abdi but declined to give details.
There was no immediate comment from Washington, which played the main role in forming the SDF in 2015, as the ground component in the war against ISIS in Syria. The US is mediating talks for the remaining SDF-held areas to be handed over to government-led police forces and civil agencies rather than the Syrian military, sources from the government and the SDF said.
The SDF is also seeking guarantees for the safety of thousands of its fighters and that the Kurdish inhabitants of the north-east will not be subject to forced displacement.
The secular SDF is inspired by the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the Turkish Kurdistan Worker Party (PKK) and Turkey wants the group dismantled, similar to the PKK, which disbanded last year, although its cadres still comprise some of the most formidable SDF fighting forces.
The SDF and the government have accused each other of initiating hostilities since a US-brokered truce, first reached on January 20. In the past 48 hours, government forces pushed to cut off population concentrations from each other and to cut off roads linking Iraqi Kurdistan to the remaining SDF-held areas in the interior.
Regular government forces, along with Arab tribes who had been allied with the SDF but switched sides, this week captured areas near the M4 motorway and Road 6. The two routes are vital for fast connections between the SDF-held cities and the last remaining border crossing to Iraq still controlled by the militia.
