Syrian government forces enter northern cities after Kurdish fighters withdraw

Syrian government forces entered two northern cities on Saturday morning after the Kurdish-led fighter command said it would evacuate the area in an apparent move to avoid conflict.

Two soldiers were killed and others wounded in the latest clash, state media reported. The city of Deir Hafer changed hands after deadly fighting broke out earlier this month between government troops and the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. in the city of Aleppothe largest in Syria. It ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from three neighborhoods taken by government forces.

An News journalist on Saturday saw government tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles, including pickup trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on top, entering Deir Hafer after bulldozers removed barriers. There was no SDF presence on the outskirts of the city.

The Syrian army said its forces were in full control of Deir Hafer, captured the Jarrah air base to the east and were in the process of clearing mines and explosives. He added that troops would move to the nearby town of Maskana, where an AP journalist saw a military convoy arriving hours later.

The SDF said in a statement that under an agreement, Syrian forces were supposed to enter Deir Hafer and Maskana after the Kurdish-led force ended its withdrawal. “Damascus violated the terms of the agreement and entered the cities before our fighters had fully withdrawn, creating a highly dangerous situation with potentially serious repercussions,” the SDF said.

State news agency SANA reported that SDF fighters “violated the agreement” by attacking an army patrol near Maskana, leaving two soldiers dead and others injured. SANA added that government forces continued to advance eastward, reaching two villages in the northern province of Raqqa.

In the past two days, more than 11,000 people fled Deir Hafer and Maskana using secondary roads to reach government-controlled areas, after the government announced an offensive to take the towns.

On Friday night, after government forces began attacking SDF positions in Deir Hafer, the top commander of the Kurdish-led fighters, Mazloum Abdi, posted on X that his group would withdraw from disputed areas in northern Syria. Abdi said SDF fighters would relocate east of the Euphrates River starting at 7 a.m. local time on Saturday.

The easing of tension came after US military officials visited Deir Hafer on Friday and held talks with SDF officials in the area. The United States has good relations with both sides and has urged calm.

Abdi was scheduled to hold talks with US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil on Saturday.

The SDF’s decision to withdraw from Deir Hafer was made after Syria Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree on Friday boosting the rights of the country’s Kurds, who made up about 10% of Syria’s 23 million population before the conflict began in 2011. Over the past decades, Syria’s Kurds had been marginalized and deprived of their cultural rights under the Baath Party government that ruled Syria for six decades until The fall of Bashar Assad in December 2024.

Al-Sharaa’s decree recognized Kurdish as the national language, along with Arabic, and adopted the Newroz festival, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds throughout the region, as an official holiday.

The Kurdish-led authority in northeastern Syria said on Saturday that Kurdish rights should not be protected by “temporary decrees” but by mentioning them in the country’s constitution. He added that a decree “does not constitute a real guarantee of the rights of Syria’s ethnic groups.”