4 dead in rare Syria-Kurdish clash — monitor

BEIRUT — Clashes in Syria's northeast between the Syrian army troops and forces aligned with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) killed two from each side on Tuesday, a war monitor said.

Syria's Kurds set up a semi-autonomous administration in the country's northeast in 2013 after government troops withdrew. The SDF, a key US partner in fighting the Daesh terror group, is the Kurdish administration's de-facto army.

Clashes between Kurdish and government forces are rare in the region.

"Two regime soldiers were killed and others were wounded" while two members of an SDF-affiliated "military council" in Tal Tamr died after an "armed clash" in the area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The official SANA news agency said that a "patrol of US forces accompanied by members of the SDF militia tried to penetrate points controlled by the Syrian army" in Hasakeh province.

It did not mention whether there were victims but said the SDF attacked after soldiers blocked the patrol's passage.

US troops are in Syria as part of an anti-extremist coalition.

The SDF confirmed the toll in a statement. It did not mention the presence of Americans, and called the incident “a dangerous provocation by the Syrian regime”.

The war in Syria is estimated to have killed nearly half-a-million people and displaced millions more since it began in 2011.