The Kurdish YPG militia launched a major assault on Monday 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.
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.
The Syrian army deployed warplanes against the main armed Kurdish group for the first time during the war last week, prompting a US-led coalition to scramble aircraft to protect American special operations ground forces.
