Syria troops briefly take villages held by Kurds

The Syrian regime yesterday briefly captured four villages east of the Euphrates River in the eastern province of Deir Al Zor after rare clashes with US-backed Kurdish-led fighters before losing the area in a counteroffensive by the Kurdish-led force.

The area close to the border with Iraq has been the site of recent clashes between the two sides who had been focusing on fighting Daesh.

Crossings into the east bank of the Euphrates in eastern Syria by regime forces have been rare.

Regime news agency SANA said the villages were held by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, adding they are close to the provincial capital, also called Deir Al Zor. The SDF said in a statement later that it regained control of the whole area it earlier lost.

Much of Deir Al Zor province was held by Daesh but over the past year Syrian regime forces captured most areas west of the Euphrates while SDF fighters took areas east of the river.

On February 7, pro-Syrian regime fighters attacked SDF positions east of the river and faced a ferocious US counterattack that left dozens, including Russians, dead.

SDF spokesman Kino Gabriel said in a statement earlier yesterday that the Syrian regime attack coincided with “our forces’ preparations to complete the Island Storm campaign” to liberate the remaining areas east of the river from Daesh. Gabriel said the Syrian regime began targeting SDF fighters to impede “the launching of our campaign against terrorism. Our forces are responding in self-defence. We affirm that we are determined to eradicate terrorism from its roots and to assert our right to self-defense,” Gabriel said about Daesh. “We consider this aggression by regime forces to be a support for terrorism and falls within the attempts to impede the war on terrorism.”