Islamists and a US-backed alliance of Kurds and Arabs have fought deadly clashes in Syria, a monitor said Monday, as the almost five-year-old conflict draws in more local and international players. At least 23 fighters were killed in the fighting between the Kurdish-led alliance and the Islamist rebels who include al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al-Nusra Front, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Fifteen fighters from Al-Nusra and its allies were killed Sunday, along with at least eight members of the Syrian Democratic Forces dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The clashes in the northern province of Aleppo began Thursday, when the Islamists attacked posts belonging to Jaish al-Thuwwar, an Arab rebel group allied with Kurds, said Kurdish journalist Arin Shekhmos.
The assault, near the Turkish border region of Azaz, prompted sporadic fighting that drew in the SDF and also saw Al-Nusra and its allies fire rockets at a Kurdish district of Aleppo city. Syria's Kurds have long had tense relations with parts of the armed opposition, particularly its hard-line elements. The minority never joined the armed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, despite having been oppressed by his regime.
It has refused to allow rebels to stage operations from Kurdish-majority regions, from which the regime withdrew in 2012, and has focused instead on building political and security autonomy. The Kurds accuse Turkey of backing some of Syria's Islamists and Ankara has often warned it will not allow the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region on its border. However, the YPG, the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, has played a key role in fighting the Islamic State jihadist group in north and north-east Syria.
It has also allied with small Arab rebel groups, like Jaish al-Thuwwar, and recently announced the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition, which groups the YPG with Christian and Arab Sunni Muslim forces. The US-backed alliance has so far mostly been active in the north-eastern province of Hasakeh, where it has captured some 200 villages from IS in recent weeks.
More than 100 rebel fighters on Monday started pulling out of a town north-west of Damascus in exchange for the lifting of a more than two-year siege. The Syrian Red Crescent on its Facebook page said its teams "evacuated 119 people from Qudsaya to Idlib (in north-west Syria) according to an agreement between all parties". Elsewhere, negotiations are underway between the regime and rebels for the evacuation of opposition forces from the last area they hold in the central city of Homs, the provincial governor told AFP.