(MENAFN- Arab Times) The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Wednesday 43 of its fi ghters were killed when Islamic State militants attacked the town of Tel Abyad on the Turkish border at the weekend. YPG offi cial Redur Xelil said the YPG has 140 bodies of IS fighters killed in the battle which began on Saturday and ended on Monday with the YPG keeping control of the town. Twenty-three civilians were also killed, he said. The YPG captured Tel Abyad from IS last year in an offensive backed by USled air strikes. Syrian opposition activists and state media say a Kurdish-led fighting alliance has captured a hill overlooking a main road in Aleppo from the militant Nusra Front group and its allies, in a surprise offensive aimed at encircling the northern city.
The predominantly Kurdish US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces' offensive Wednesday mostly likely does not break the cease-fi re that came into effect Friday, because Nusra Front and Islamic State group are excluded from the agreement. Syrian troops and the SDF had halted their offensive in northern Syria for days after the cease-fi re began. Syrian state TV reported that progovernment gunmen captured Castello hill, "cutting supply lines for terrorists" in eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo with southern parts of the Aleppo province. Sami al-Raj, an Aleppo-based opposition activist, confi rmed via Skype the SDF advances.
Meanwhile, Turkey's powerful Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan on Tuesday criticised the United States over its Syria strategy, charging that it was relying on Kurdish fighters he described a "small terror organisation". In an exclusive interview with AFP, Akdogan also rejected suggestions Ankara is preparing any unilateral military intervention to end the five-year war in Syria. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG) to be an affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
The issue has caused major tensions between Turkey and its NATO ally the United States, which has been cooperating with the YPG as the most effective fighting force on the ground against Islamic State (IS) jihadists. Akdogan said the United States had to see that the PYD and YPG are "arm in arm" with Russia and the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. "I don't believe it is a very correct approach for giant America to be relying on and hoping for help from a small terrorist organisation and staking its entire Syria approach on this," he said. "YPG and PYD is part of the PKK. A change in the name does not change its nature. If you call an apple a pear, it is still an apple," he added.
Alarmed by Kurdish militia forces' advance in northern Syria, Turkey last month shelled their positions in Syria, saying it was responding to incoming fi re in line with its rules of engagement. Eighteen fighters were killed in a car bomb blast that hit a Syrian insurgent group in the southern province of Quneitra on Wednesday, a monitoring group reported, and a rebel source said the attack was likely carried out by hardline Islamists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the explosion took place in the village of al-Isha, hitting a base belonging to Jabhat Thuwwar Souria, a Free Syrian Army group. Suhaib al-Ruhail, a spokesman for the Alwiyat al-Furqan group which operates in the area, said it was most likely carried out by "DAESH sleeper cells", a reference to Islamic State.
The incident did not appear to be related to the current cessation of hostilities between the Syrian government and its allies and non-jihadist insurgent groups. More than 1,700 civilians have been killed by Russian air strikes in Syria since Moscow's air campaign began five months ago, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. "Since September 30, Russian air strikes have killed 4,408 people including 1,733 civilians," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The civilian toll included 429 children and 250 women. More than 60 percent of those killed were fighters, including 1,492 from rebel groups and Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front, and 1,183 from the Islamic State group. A ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia came into effect on Saturday but does not include territory controlled by IS or Al-Nusra. Syrian government forces launched an attack on Wednesday to capture a rebelheld hill in north-western Syria, a rebel official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, an expansion of operations that have continued in that area despite a deal to cease fighting.
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