Fighting escalated sharply in north-east Syria on Thursday, with at least 10 members of the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces killed in government attacks to cut off the group's supply lines and squeeze it further into a pocket near Turkey.
The escalation occurred as US envoy Tom Barrack, the architect of the January 20 truce that has largely been ignored, met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara. Neither side revealed the content of their talks. Turkey is the main regional backer of the government of Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara and wants the SDF dismantled.
“Our forces are engaged on all fronts,” an SDF official told The National.
Over the past two weeks, the SDF has lost large, resource-rich territories that it acquired with US support during Syria's civil war. The group's demise would enhance Turkey's role in Syria and strengthen the domestic position of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The SDF has been the most powerful rival of the central government that replaced Bashar Al Assad's regime after Mr Al Shara led rebels into Damascus in December 2024. The SDF's importance as a US ally has diminished since then.
The SDF official said government forces and tribal auxiliaries were trying to advance from south to north into the provincial capital of Hasakah, and on roads linking SDF-held cities to the border with Iraq's Kurdistan region. Fighting is also continuing near the Kurdish city of Kobani, to the west.
Some of the SDF casualties, he said, were from a drone attack on personnel guarding Road 6, which connects the city of Qamishli to the Iraqi border.
Meanwhile, the SDF shelled government positions near the M4 motorway running south from Kobani. There were no reports of government casualties.
A Syrian official declined to comment on the military situation but said the US-mediated deal with the SDF on January 18 to allow government authorities into the area and to merge with regular forces “remains on”.
Mr Al Shara and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi met in Damascus on Tuesday under US auspices to try to save the deal. No details were released. But Rojava Network, which is close to the SDF, quoted a source as saying the meeting was inconclusive, with Mr Abdi insisting that the SDF would only join the army as a block and not be de facto disbanded as the government and Turkey want.
Washington 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.
