Fighting escalates between US-backed groups in northern Syria

U.S.-backed rebels in northern Syria are using U.S.-supplied weapons to attack other Syrian fighters backed by the U.S., according to recent reports. 

A rebel group under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner fired a U.S.-supplied guided TOW missile at Syrian Kurdish forces also backed by the U.S. last week on June 12 in the first attack of its kind, Reuters reported Wednesday.

{mosads}The TOW missile attack marks an escalation of tensions between the two U.S.-supported factions in northern Syria, where fighting is converging between different parties of the five-year Syrian civil war around Aleppo city.

The fighting also complicates the U.S.’s goals in Syria of defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and achieving a political solution that leads to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s departure. 

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) lamented the latest entanglement, tweeting the Reuters article and adding, “The Kurds can take Raqqa from #ISIL but won’t. Syrian Arabs want to take Raqqa, but can’t. And now this…”

A British general with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS told reporters on Thursday that he had no additional details on the incident other than what he has read in the media but downplayed tensions between the different U.S.-backed groups. 

“[They] all have their own sort of agendas and aspirations, but you’re seeing that change,” said British Army Maj. Gen. Doug Chalmers, deputy commander of strategy and sustainment for the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, at a press briefing. 

“It hasn’t risen up to any significant rift,” he added. “There is tension, yes, and that reflects the complexity of Syria, but it’s no more now than it has been probably for the last couple of months.” 

U.S. troops are working closely with the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit, or YPG militia, seen as the most effective rebel fighters in Syria, to take back territory from ISIS in northern Syria. However, Syrian Arab rebels see it as a potential Kurdish land grab. 

“There is a deepening divide between us,” the politburo chief of the Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest FSA rebel groups in the Aleppo area, told Reuters. “If there is no quick political solution between the revolutionaries and the Kurds, it is heading towards escalation.”

YPG spokesman Redur Xelil told Reuters his group did not aim to spark a battle with FSA groups but added, “If they want a war, they will certainly lose.”

The rebel groups who have received TOW missiles fall under a CIA program, but Pentagon trained-and-equipped rebels have also clashing with the YPG as well, according to a leader of the Moutasem Brigades. 

Earlier this month, the group had to be supplied by the U.S. via airdrop for the first time, versus a land route, said the group’s political chief, Mustafa Sejari. 

“We were under siege by ISIS and PYD forces,” Sejari told The Hill, referring to the political party affiliated with the YPG.

He also said Syrian regime and Russian forces are “constantly” helping the Kurdish fighters against the U.S.-backed rebel groups. The YPG has denied working with either. 

— This story was updated at 1:17 p.m. ET.