Beirut--Syrian regime forces and Kurdish militia fought separate battles with the Islamic State group on Monday in a strategic area near the Iraqi and Turkish borders, a monitoring group said.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) launched uncoordinated offensives against IS in the northeastern province of Hasakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that after three days of clashes, regime forces bolstered by fighters from Arab tribes had secured control over 23 villages in the centre of the province from IS.
Syrian state news agency SANA put the number at 31.
"IS has launched counter-attacks on regime checkpoints, while the regime fortifies its positions with support from local Arab tribes," Abdel Rahman added.
He said YPG fighters were meanwhile also battling IS alongside Arab tribes outside the village of Tal Tamr in Hasakeh's southwest.
"The YPG fighters in Tal Tamr are shelling IS around the area to lure IS to respond, so they can identify their positions" and call for strikes by the US-led coalition waging an air campaign against IS, he said.
"But IS is avoiding any response in order not to give away its positions."
YPG spokesman Redur Khalil confirmed to AFP that the Kurdish fighters were conducting "attack-and-retreat operations with IS on two fronts.
"The first is around Tal Tamr, in order to retake Assyrian towns in the area, and the second is around Tal Burak," another town between provincial capital Hasakeh and the city of Qamishli, he said.
IS launched an attack last week on the areas around Kurdish-controlled Tal Tamr and kidnapped 220 Assyrian Christians from 11 towns.
Nineteen of those kidnapped were freed on Sunday after ransoms were paid.
Control of Hasakeh province is split between IS, regime fighters and Kurdish militia, with overlap at a number of points.
The area is of strategic importance because it borders both Turkey and Iraq.
A UN fact-finding mission meanwhile deployed to Syria's second city Aleppo on Monday, despite the rejection by opposition forces of a partial ceasefire there proposed by UN envoy Staffan de Mistura.
afp
