Syrian government forces enter northern towns after Kurdish fighters withdraw

Syrian government forces entered two northern towns Saturday morning after the Kurdish-led fighter command announced it would evacuate the area, apparently to avoid conflict.

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

An Associated Press reporter saw government tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles, including pickup trucks topped with heavy machine guns, entering Deir Hafer on Saturday after bulldozers removed barriers. There was no FDS presence on the outskirts of the town.

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

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 “Damascus violated the terms of the agreement and entered the cities before our fighters had completely withdrawn, creating a very dangerous situation with potentially serious repercussions,” the SDF said.

The official SANA news agency reported that FDS fighters “violated the agreement” by targeting a military patrol near Maskana, leaving two people dead and others injured. SANA added that government forces continued to move east, reaching two villages in the northern province of Raqqa.

Over the past two days, more than 11,000 people have 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 evening, after government forces began shelling SDF positions in Deir Hafer, the Kurdish-led fighters’ chief commander, Mazloum Abdi, announced on X that his group would withdraw from contested areas in northern Syria. Abdi said SDF fighters would move east of the Euphrates River starting at 7 a.m. local time on Saturday.

The easing of tensions came after the visit of American military officials to Deir Hafer on Friday and discussions with SDF officials present in the region. The United States maintains good relations with both sides and calls for calm.

Abdi was scheduled to meet with US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil on Saturday.

The SDF’s decision to withdraw from Deir Hafer was taken after the Syrian attack. Acting President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree on Friday strengthening the rights of the country’s Kurds, who made up about 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million people before the conflict began in 2011. In recent decades, Syria’s Kurds were marginalized and deprived of their cultural rights under the Ba’ath Party regime that ruled Syria for six decades until The fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

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

Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria said Saturday that Kurdish rights should not be protected by “temporary decrees” but by their mention in the country’s constitution. He adds that a decree “does not constitute a real guarantee of the rights of Syrian ethnic groups.”