Syrian government forces entered two northern cities Saturday morning after the command of Kurdish-led fighters mentioned it will evacuate the realm in an obvious transfer to keep away from battle.
Two troopers had been killed and others wounded within the newest conflict, state media reported. The city of Deir Hafer modified palms after lethal preventing erupted earlier this month between authorities troops and the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest. It ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods taken over by authorities forces.
An Related Press reporter on Saturday noticed authorities tanks, armored personnel carriers and different automobiles, together with pickup vans with heavy machine weapons mounted on prime, getting into Deir Hafer after bulldozers eliminated boundaries. There was no SDF presence on the sting of the city.
The Syrian navy mentioned its forces had been in full management of Deir Hafer, captured the Jarrah air base to the east, and had been within the technique of clearing mines and explosives. It added that troops would transfer towards the close by city of Maskana, the place an AP reporter noticed a navy convoy rolling in hours later.
Ghaith Alsayed / AP
The SDF mentioned in an announcement that based on an settlement, Syrian forces had been alleged to enter Deir Hafer and Maskana after the Kurdish-led drive ended their withdrawal. “Damascus violated the phrases of the settlement and entered the cities earlier than our fighters had totally withdrawn, making a extremely harmful state of affairs with probably critical repercussions,” the SDF mentioned.
State information company SANA reported that SDF fighters “violated the settlement” by focusing on a military patrol close to Maskana, leaving two troopers useless and others wounded. SANA added that authorities forces stored transferring east, reaching two villages within the northern province of Raqqa.
Over the previous two days, greater than 11,000 folks fled Deir Hafer and Maskana utilizing aspect roads to succeed in government-controlled areas, after the federal government introduced an offensive to take the cities.
On Friday night time, after authorities forces began pounding SDF positions in Deir Hafer, the Kurdish-led fighters’ prime commander Mazloum Abdi posted on X that his group would withdraw from contested areas in northern Syria. Abdi mentioned SDF fighters would relocate east of the Euphrates River beginning 7 a.m. native time Saturday.
The easing of stress got here after U.S. navy officers visited Deir Hafer on Friday and held talks with SDF officers within the space. The USA has good relations with either side and has urged calm.
Ghaith Alsayed / AP 
Abdi was scheduled to carry talks with U.S. particular particular envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, within the northern Iraqi metropolis of Irbil on Saturday.
The SDF’s resolution to withdraw from Deir Hafer was made after Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree Friday boosting the rights of the nation’s Kurds, who made up about 10% of Syria’s inhabitants of 23 million earlier than the battle started in 2011. Over the previous a long time, Syria’s Kurds had been marginalized and disadvantaged of their cultural rights beneath the rule of the Baath Celebration that ran Syria for six a long time till Bashar Assad’s fall in December 2024.
Al-Sharaa’s decree acknowledged Kurdish as a nationwide language, together with Arabic, and adopted the Newroz competition, a standard celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds across the area, as an official vacation.
The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria mentioned Saturday that the rights of Kurds shouldn’t be protected by “momentary decrees” however by mentioning them within the nation’s structure. It added {that a} decree “doesn’t type an actual assure for rights of Syria’s ethnic teams.”
