Syria's Arab-led rebels seized new territory in the eastern Euphrates valley from government forces on Thursday but ran into resistance from Kurdish militia on the Turkish border in a potential new security concern for the key NATO member.
Rebel fighters captured the Euphrates town of Mayadeen in a drive up the strategic valley from the Iraqi border, bringing the largest single swathe of territory in the country under their control, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
But farther north, in the battlefield town of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border, mainly jihadist rebel forces were in a standoff with Kurdish militia with links to Ankara's longtime foe, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the largest such confrontation so far in the 20-month uprising.
The dispute is bring Russia and NATO into conflict because Turkey, a NAATO member, is asking for Patriot missels to protect its borders, and Russia objects. Tension mounts.
article AFP article is republished after the jump.
Here are three photographs and a map that accompanied the article:
Damage at a house in the Damascus district of Mazzeh
is pictured after it was target by mortar fire
(SANA/AFP)
Syrian women bake bread in a clay oven
in the town of Maraat al-Numan
in the southern Idlib province on November 21
(AFP/File, John Cantlie)
A Syrian rebel mourns the death of a comrade in the town of
Maraat al-Numan in Idlib province on
November 20 (AFP/File, John Cantlie)
