Near Tabqa, intermittent gunfire can be heard from what one security officer says are limited clashes with the SDF. Shops remain closed, but some residents are milling around outside their homes, lighting fires to keep warm in the rainy weather. Resident Ahmad Hussein said: “People are afraid, but we hope that things will improve over the coming few days.” “We have suffered a lot, and I hope that the situation will improve with the arrival of the Syrian army,” Hussein said. The government push has so far captured Arab-majority areas that came under Kurdish control during the fight against ISIL, whose defeat in Syria was secured with the help of the US-backed SDF.
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Status quo between Syrian government and SDF was ‘unsustainable’
Ammar Kahf, the executive director of the Omran Centre for Strategic Studies, a think tank focused on Syria, says the window for talks between Damascus and the SDF has not closed. Speaking to Al Jazeera, he noted, however, that the status quo, including the stalled process on integrating the SDF, was “unsustainable”. Kahf said it is important that both sides reach an agreement to end the fighting and resolve the underlying issues related to the status of the SDF, arguing it would not be optimal to see a defeat for either of the forces. “How do you neutralise? How do you make sure we don’t create another sense of exclusion or sense of defeat?” he asked.
Syrian official: Ground assault intends to make SDF comply with March deal
A Syrian Foreign Ministry official tells Al Jazeera the offensive against the SDF launched by government forces is intended to compel the Kurdish-led group to comply with a March agreement to integrate its fighters into the army. Ashhad Aslibi, a Syrian diplomat, said the government sent a proposal to the SDF leadership and it’s currently awaiting a response. Aslibi characterised some of the activity in areas formerly held by the SDF as “a popular uprising” rather than entirely the result of the armed offensive. The March agreement emphasised the unity of Syria, and stipulated “all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria” be merged “into the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the airport, and oil and gas fields”.
‘Skirmishes and uprisings’ not ‘full-scale war’
Syria’s government is trying “to impose” its vision of Kurdish political rights in the country through force by pushing the SDF back from territory under its control, an analyst says. “Any offensive that goes farther eastwards, the neighbourhoods become more and more Kurdish and less and less Arab, which will make fighting a lot harder,” Rob Geist Pinfold from King’s College London told Al Jazeera. The government does not have any forces east of the Euphrates River because of an agreement with the United States, “so what we’re likely to see is not full-scale war but more likely changing facts on the ground through skirmishes and tribal uprisings”, Geist Pinfold said.
Tribal forces seize control of Conoco gasfield in Deir Az Zor
Amir al-Ebad, a correspondent with Al Jazeera who arrived at the Conoco gasfield in Deir Az Zor, reports armed tribal forces entered the site following the withdrawal of the SDF from the facility. They have now taken full control of the facility, he added, saying access has been restricted because of the risk of landmines and tunnels where fighters may be operating. A sweep of the area was under way, al-Ebad said, reporting from the entrance of the gasfield.