BEIRUT: Kurdish fighters have driven jihadists from 19 towns and villages across northeastern Syria in recent days, a week after capturing a key Iraqi border crossing, a monitoring group said Monday.
The Committees for the Protection of the Kurdish People (YPJ), the main Kurdish militia in Syria, has battled other rebel groups in a bid to carve out an autonomous region in the northeast, where the army is no longer deployed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that relies on local activists and other sources, said that "since Saturday, a total of 19 localities have fallen into the hands of Kurdish fighters."