DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY/BEIRUT: Syrian Kurds battled Saturday pro-government forces, Kurdish sources and a monitoring group said, breaking a longstanding tacit agreement between the two sides to focus on other enemies in a complex civil war.
In Syria's predominantly Kurdish northeast, pro-government forces and Kurdish militia, mainly the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), have for the most part coexisted without clashing, focusing their firepower on ISIS.
However, violence broke out when Syrian army soldiers and allied militiamen took control of buildings in an area that both sides had agreed would stay demilitarized, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
"There has been some serious fighting today. The PYD (the political wing of the YPG) arrested 10 soldiers and Baath party gunmen," Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.
"There is now fighting in many areas of Hassakeh."
The YPG and the government had divided Hassakeh into zones in a power sharing agreement, the Observatory said.