Beirut: Syrian regime forces and Kurdish militia fought separate battles with Daesh on Monday in a strategic area near the Iraqi and Turkish borders, a monitoring group said.
Forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad and fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) launched uncoordinated offensives against Daesh in the northeastern province of Hasakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said that after three days of clashes, regime forces bolstered by fighters from Arab tribes had secured control over 23 villages in the centre of the province from Daesh.
Syrian state news agency SANA put the number at 31.
“Daesh has launched counter-attacks on regime checkpoints, while the regime fortifies its positions with support from local Arab tribes,” Abdul Rahman added.
He said YPG fighters were meanwhile also battling Daesh alongside Arab tribes outside the village of Tal Tamr in Hasakeh’s southwest.
“The YPG fighters in Tal Tamr are shelling Daesh around the area to lure Daesh to respond, so they can identify their positions” and call for strikes by the US-led coalition waging an air campaign against Daesh, he said.
“But Daesh is avoiding any response in order not to give away its positions.”
YPG spokesman Redur Khalil confirmed that the Kurdish fighters were conducting “attack-and-retreat operations with Daesh on two fronts.
“The first is around Tal Tamr, in order to retake Assyrian towns in the area, and the second is around Tal Burak,” another town between provincial capital Hasakeh and the city of Qamishli, he said.
Daesh launched an attack last week on the areas around Kurdish-controlled Tal Tamr and kidnapped 220 Assyrian Christians from 11 towns.
Nineteen of those kidnapped were freed on Sunday after ransoms were paid.
Control of Hasakeh province is split between Daesh, regime fighters and Kurdish militia, with overlap at a number of points.
The area is of strategic importance because it borders both Turkey and Iraq.
A UN fact-finding mission meanwhile deployed to Syria’s second city Aleppo on Monday, despite the rejection by opposition forces of a partial ceasefire there proposed by UN envoy Staffan de Mistura.
“The mission will aim to assess the situation on the ground and to ensure that, once the freeze is announced, humanitarian aid can significantly increase, and to prepare arrangements to follow up on violations of the freeze,” his office said in a statement.
