The US has called on the Syrian army to halt its advance through Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria amid clashes with Kurdish-led forces over strategic checkpoints and oil fields along the Euphrates River.
The Syrian army made rapid advances on Saturday after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) agreed to withdraw east of the river following recent fighting in Aleppo and the city’s east. Stalled plans To merge the SDF into the Syrian state.
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Brad Cooper, who heads the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM), wrote on X that the Syrian army must “cease any offensive operations” in the area between the city of Aleppo and the city of Tabqa, roughly 160km (100 miles) east in Raqqa governorate.
On Saturday, the Syrian Army Operations Command told Al Jazeera Arabic that forces had entered Tabqa, a strategic town near a dam and a military airbase. The SDF denied the claim and said its troops were “still in their positions” there.
‘betrayal’
The SDF said it would withdraw from the major cities of Deir Hafar and Maksana, as well as some surrounding villages in Aleppo governorate, whose residents are mainly Arab.
Syrian army took control On Saturday it accused the area and the SDF of violating a withdrawal agreement by targeting an army patrol near Maksana, “killing two soldiers”.
The SDF, meanwhile, accused Damascus of violating the agreement by entering the towns “before our soldiers had fully withdrawn”.
Later, Syrian forces made further advances, with state news agency SANA reporting that they expanded into the Raqqa countryside, entered Kurdish-controlled towns and villages including Hanida, Rajam al-Ghazal, Mansoura and Dzur Shamar, and imposed a curfew in the Madan area.
The SDF accused Damascus of betrayal. “Heavy clashes continue between our forces and Damascus factions, who violated recent agreements and betrayed our forces during the implementation of withdrawal provisions,” it said in a statement, adding that parts of Raqqa “have come under artillery fire and rocket fire”.
But the SDF said in a statement on Saturday that Tabqa was “outside the scope of the agreement” and that it would fight to keep the city as well as its surrounding oil fields.
Reporting from Aleppo, Al Jazeera’s Zain Basrawi said shelling was continuing in Raqqa governorate.
“The amount of weapons, the amount of long-range artillery, the ammunition trucks we saw going in that direction, it’s not surprising,” he said.
“The fighting is going on for the oilfields controlled by the SDF, so it’s a very ongoing, active theater of operations and things are moving very quickly,” he added.
The Syrian Petroleum Company said on Saturday it had captured the al-Rasafa and Safyan oilfields from the Syrian army, shortly after the soldiers recaptured parts of Deir Hafar and Maskana from the SDF.
Unsolved issue
The US had to recalculate its Syria policy to support the SDF, with whom it was allied, in the fight against ISIL (ISIS), and support for the new Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara, whose forces ousted Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.
US Ambassador Tom Barrack traveled to Erbil in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq on Saturday to meet with Abdi and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani.
Officials in the Kurdish region welcomed the order announced on Friday formally recognized Restores the Kurdish language and Kurdish citizenship to Syrians, but says it needs to be translated into law and incorporated into the constitution.
From Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Bernard Smith said that “behind the sensible words” “an unresolved issue is how to integrate thousands of heavily armed, well-trained SDF fighters into the Syrian army”.
“It should have started last year. It never started until the end of the year. That’s what led to these clashes in early January,” he said.