Twenty-five people were killed in clashes between the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and fighters loyal to Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in an Arab town in eastern Syria, announced , Tuesday September 26, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
The FDS (a coalition supported by the United States) announced on Tuesday that they had “chased out the armed men of the regime who had infiltrated the locality of Dheibane”in the province of Deir ez-Zor.
At the beginning of September, clashes between the FDS, dominated by the Kurds, and fighters from local Arab tribes in this region left 90 dead in around ten days.
Clashes until dawn
According to the OSDH, the clashes which broke out on Monday and continued until dawn on Tuesday left 21 dead in the ranks of regime fighters, and three on the FDS side. A woman was also killed. The predominantly Arab province of Deir ez-Zor is crossed by the Euphrates, which marks the border between areas held by the Bashar Al-Assad regime and those controlled by the SDF.
According to the NGO based in the United Kingdom but which has a vast network of sources in Syria, “Pro-regime fighters infiltrated areas under FDS control on Monday by crossing the Euphrates and clashes took place between them”.
In a statement, the SDF accused the gunmen of infiltrating from the west bank of the Euphrates “under the cover of indiscriminate bombing” from regime-held areas.
The SDF spearheaded the offensive that defeated ISIS in Syria in 2019, and still enjoys the support of Washington. They control a semi-autonomous Kurdish zone in the northeast of the country, including swaths of the oil-rich Deir ez-Zor province, where American forces are deployed.