Kurdish-led SDF says it clashed with government forces in northern Syria

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DUBAI (Reuters) -The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said on Monday its fighters had clashed with government forces in Aleppo province in the country’s north, in the latest incident to cast a shadow over a landmark integration deal they signed in March.

The SDF was the main fighting force allied to the United States in Syria during fighting that defeated Islamic State in 2019 after the group declared a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq.

In March, the SDF signed a deal with the new Islamist-led government in Damascus to join Syria’s state institutions, following the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad in December.

The deal aimed to stitch back together a country fractured by 14 years of war, paving the way for Kurdish-led forces that hold a quarter of Syria to merge with Damascus, along with regional Kurdish governing bodies.

On Monday, the SDF said government forces had carried out attacks against four of its posts in Dayr Hafir.

“We hold the Damascus government fully responsible for this behaviour, and reaffirm that our forces are now more prepared than ever to exercise their legitimate right to respond with full force and determination,” the SDF said in a statement.

At the weekend, the government and SDF had traded blame over an attack in the nearby city of Manbij, where the Syrian defence ministry accused the SDF of carrying out a rocket attack against an army outpost in the countryside. The SDF said it had responded to an unprovoked artillery assault against civilians.

(Reporting by Tala Ramadan and Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Alison Williams and Alex Richardson)