Two Syrian govt militants killed by Kurdish forces: ministry

DAMASCUS,— Syrian authorities said Thursday that two government Islamist militias were killed in overnight clashes with Kurdish-led forces in the northeast, following what officials described as an assault on military positions in Raqa province.

The confrontation added new strain to relations between the government in Damascus and the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces SDF, who serve as de facto army of the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) operating across much of the country’s oil-producing north and northeast.

A statement released through SANA, the state news agency, reported that units of the SDF struck several army posts late Wednesday night.

Officials said Kurdish fighters seized a number of positions, which, according to the ministry, resulted in the deaths of two government militants and injuries to several others.

The ministry added that army personnel counterattacked and reclaimed the sites. Damascus authorities assigned responsibility for the incident entirely to the SDF.

The Kurdish forces disputed the government’s version. In a statement, the SDF said its fighters were responding to sites that Islamic State militants had used to launch drones toward SDF positions.

The powerful Kurdish group said its units were acting against what it described as active threats posed by Islamic State cells sheltering near front lines supervised by factions tied to the Damascus government.

The SDF played a central role in the multinational campaign that dismantled the Islamic State group’s self-proclaimed territory in Syria in 2019.

In their message, the forces said that areas around the confrontation had been subjected to repeated assaults this week by groups linked to the government.

The SDF argued that Islamic State elements had taken advantage of those same locations to organize recent drone operations. The statement accused several government-aligned factions of coordinating directly with Islamic State members to target SDF defensive lines.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring organization, reported a higher casualty toll, stating that six government personnel had been killed in the fighting. Its figures could not be independently confirmed.

Earlier this year, the SDF signed an agreement with Syria’s new Islamist authorities that outlined a process to merge Kurdish military and civilian structures with the central government.

Implementation of the accord has stalled, in part because Kurdish leaders have continued to push for decentralization, a demand that Damascus has consistently rejected.

The SDF said its units downed two drones in eastern Raqqa countryside along the Ghanem al-Ali front.

The group said the drones were launched from positions held by factions aligned with the Damascus government. According to the SDF statement and video evidence, one drone was a Matrice M30 model and the other was identified as an offensive FPV type.

SDF technical teams said they recovered data from the M30 drone. The group stated that stored footage indicated the drone had been operated by foreign militants affiliated with Islamic State who were stationed within positions controlled by government-affiliated factions.

The SDF said the discovery demonstrated direct cooperation between elements of Damascus-linked groups and foreign Islamic State fighters.

The group announced plans to release images and related material as documentation. It urged members of the International Coalition to review the findings and investigate how foreign Islamic State operatives were able to operate drones from locations near government positions.

It requested that coalition partners act against those providing technical or logistical assistance to such attacks, stating that such cooperation threatens civilians and regional stability.

The statement concluded that ignoring these developments would allow the Islamic State group to rebuild its capabilities and continue endangering local communities.

(With files from AFP | SDF | Agencies)