US-Backed Kurdish Forces Attack East Syrian Villages

The Syrian Civil War and its various fronts continue to re-escalate today with the Kurdish SDF attacking, and temporarily claiming they had captured seven villages in the eastern Deir Ezzor Province. The villages are along the path between the provincial capital and the Abu Kamal border crossing with Iraq.

The villages didn’t ultimately remain in the SDF’s hands, with the Syrian Army reporting that they had repelled them after intense fighting. The decision of the SDF to attack in the first place does not appear to have been entirely their own, however.

The US not only supported the SDF attack, but according to al-Mayadeen the US military actually “instructed” the SDF’s Deir Ezzor Military Council to attack those specific villages, meant to take advantage of the recent territory losses and fighting further west between Syrian forces and the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).