×

Our award-winning reporting has moved

Context provides news and analysis on three of the world’s most critical issues:

climate change, the impact of technology on society, and inclusive economies.

Syrian army advance opens new link to Kurdish areas

by Reuters
Monday, 27 February 2017 18:17 GMT

Fighters of the Manbij military council, allied to Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), take an overwatch position in the southern rural area of Manbij, in Aleppo Governorate, Syria in this 2016 archive photo. REUTERS/Rodi Said/File Photo

Image Caption and Rights Information

Residents of the northeast who had previously depended on medical care in Aleppo and Damascus would be able to do so again, said a spokesman

* Army reach edge of area held by Kurdish-dominated militia

* Militia spokesman hails advance, sees no risk of clash

* Corridor could bring big trade benefits to both sides

By Tom Perry and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

BEIRUT, Feb 27 (Reuters) - A Syrian army advance against Islamic State in northern Syria has opened a new link between government-held areas of western Syria and the Kurdish-dominated northeast, redrawing the map of the conflict near the Turkish border.

The advance, if sustained, could open a trade lifeline between the northeast, which is home to 70 percent of Syria's oil and to rich farmland, and the west, where Syria's manufacturing base is located.

Northern Syria is one of the most complicated battlefields in the multi-sided Syrian war that erupted in 2011.

The army advance has taken place to the south of an area where Turkey and its rebel allies are waging their own, rival campaign, carving out a buffer zone to keep Islamic State and Kurdish groups away from the Turkish border.

Syrian government forces have now come to the edge of a swathe of territory dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has mostly avoided conflict with Damascus but is seen by Turkey as an extension of the PKK militant group that has waged a three-decade insurgency on Turkish territory. The YPG's critics have accused it of cooperating with Damascus in the Syrian war.

The spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia alliance dominated by the YPG, hailed the Syrian army's advance and ruled out any risk of a clash with them.

"On the trade front and on the civilian front it is seen as an excellent thing, because now there is ... a link between the entire northern rural area," spokesman Talal Silo told Reuters.

Now, he said, there was a direct route from the SDF-controlled town of Manbij to the city of Aleppo "via areas controlled by the SDF and areas controlled by the regime forces".

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military on its latest advances.

"INTERESTS OF CITIZEN"

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had captured some two dozen villages from Islamic State, bringing it to the edge of SDF-held areas south of Manbij.

The SDF captured Manbij from Islamic State last year with backing from the U.S.-led alliance against the jihadist group.

Silo said residents of the northeast who had previously depended on medical care in Aleppo and Damascus would be able to do so again. "All these matters are in the interests of the citizen," he said.

The Syrian government still has footholds in YPG-dominated northeastern Syria in the cities of Qamishli and Hasaka. The YPG also controls part of the city of Aleppo, where government forces and their allies defeated rebels in December.

The YPG forms the military backbone of three autonomous areas set up in predominantly Kurdish regions of northern Syria since the onset of the conflict in 2011.

Turkey's intervention has disrupted the YPG's plans to link up the two autonomous areas of northeastern Syria with the third one, which is located in northwestern Syria.

The main Syrian Kurdish groups and their allies want to preserve their autonomy in a new federal system of government for Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad opposes the idea.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and Suleiman al-Khalidi; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

-->