Kurds launch assault to evict Syrian army from key city

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Kurdish YPG militia launched a major assault on Monday, August 22 to seize the last government-controlled parts of the northeastern Syrian city of Hasaka after calling on pro-government militias to surrender, Kurdish forces and residents said, according to Reuters.

They said Kurdish forces began the offensive after midnight to take the southeastern district of Nashwa, close to where a security compound is located near the governor's office close to the heart of the city.

The powerful YPG militia had earlier captured Ghwairan, the only major Arab neighborhood still in government hands.

The fighting this week in Hasaka, which is divided into zones of Kurdish and Syrian government control, marks the most violent confrontation between the Kurdish YPG militia and Damascus in more than five years of civil war, Rueters says.

The Syrian army deployed warplanes against the main armed Kurdish group for the first time during the war last week, prompting a U.S.-led coalition to scramble aircraft to protect American special operations ground forces.

The YPG is at the heart of a U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State militant group in Syria and controls swaths of the north, where Kurdish groups associated with the militia have set up their own government since the Syrian war began in 2011.

Syrian state media accused the YPG-affiliated security force known as the Asayish of violating a ceasefire and said its members had torched government buildings in Hasaka.

It accused the Asayish of igniting the violence through escalating "provocations", including the bombing of army positions in Hasaka, and said the Asayish aimed to take control of the city.

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