Military (proper) and military analyst sources note that Syrian Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) have mostly withdrawn from areas controlled by the US-led coalition in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor province, handing over control to another coalition partner militia known as the Deir ez-Zor Military Council (DMC), Al-Masdar News reports.

Following major military and diplomatic pressures imposed by Ankara against Kurdish paramilitary groups in Syria, US-backed YPG has withdrawn the main part of it forces in the country’s east towards the embattled region of Afrin where the Turkish Army is leading an operation against the YPG and to the southern border with Turkey in provinces of Raqqa and Hasakah were the Turkish Army is threatening new operations.

Taking up the positions left behind by YPG in Syria’s east is the DMC, a US-backed Arab off-shoot militia within the Syrian Democratic Forces mostly comprising Free Syrian Army fighters as well as jihadists who once fought in the ranks of Al-Qaeda and IS.

Over the last week, and even on at least one occasion before then, the DMC has directly attacked positions of the Syrian Army at the towns of Khasham and At-Tabiyyah on the east the Euphrates shore.