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Syria Monitor: 101 Killed in Battles between Pro-Türkiye, Kurdish Forces

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
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Syria Monitor: 101 Killed in Battles between Pro-Türkiye, Kurdish Forces

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)

More than 100 combatants were killed over the last two days in northern Syria in fighting between Turkish-backed groups and Syrian Kurdish forces, a war monitor said on Sunday.
Since Friday evening, clashes in several villages around the city of Manbij have left 101 dead, including 85 members of pro-Turkish groups and 16 from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The SDF said it had repelled "all the attacks from Türkiye’s mercenaries supported by Turkish drones and aviation".
The Turkish defense ministry said it had "neutralized" 32 Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, without providing further details.
Turkish-backed factions in northern Syria resumed their fight with the SDF at the same time as the opposition armed factions were launching an offensive on November 27 that overthrew Syrian president Bashar al-Assad just 11 days later.
The pro-Ankara groups succeeded in capturing Kurdish-held Manbij and Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo province, despite US-led efforts to establish a truce in the Manbij area.
The fighting has continued since, with mounting casualties.
During a visit to Damascus on Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said security of the Kurds is "essential for a peaceful Syria." She said this requires "an end to the fighting in the north and the integration of the Kurdish forces... in the Syrian security architecture."
The SDF controls vast areas of Syria's northeast, and parts of Deir Ezzor province in the east, where the Kurds created a semi-autonomous administration following the withdrawal of government forces during the civil war that began in 2011.
The group, which receives US backing, took control of additional territory after capturing it from the ISIS group.
Ankara accuses the main component of the SDF, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Türkiye and is banned as a terrorist organization by the government.
The Turkish military regularly launches strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and neighboring Iraq, accusing them of being PKK-linked.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new leader and the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, told Al Arabiya TV in late December that local Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the national army.
HTS led the coalition of opposition groups that overthrew Assad last month.

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MSF Suspends Operations at Key Hospital in Sudan's Capital

FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
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MSF Suspends Operations at Key Hospital in Sudan's Capital

FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)
FILE - South Sudanese people sit outside a nutrition clinic at a transit center in Renk, South Sudan, on May 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, File)

Medical aid agency MSF said on Friday it has been forced to suspend its activities at one of the few remaining hospitals in southern Khartoum due to repeated attacks, cutting off yet another lifeline for those who remain in the Sudanese capital.
War has been raging in Sudan since April 2023, sparked by a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) ahead of a planned transition to civilian rule, triggering the world's largest displacement and hunger crisis.
The hospital, which lies in territory controlled by the RSF, helped treat the victims of frequent airstrikes by the Sudanese Armed Forces, as well as hundreds of malnourished women and children in an area where two neighborhoods have been judged at risk of famine, reported Reuters.
"In the 20 months MSF teams have worked alongside hospital staff and volunteers, Bashair Hospital has experienced repeated incidents of armed fighters entering the hospital with weapons and threatening medical staff, often demanding fighters be treated before other patients," MSF said in a statement.
"Despite extensive engagements with all stakeholders, these attacks have continued in recent months. MSF has now taken the very difficult decision to suspend all medical activities in the hospital."
The fighting in Sudan has cut off up to 80% of hospitals in conflict areas, where millions who cannot afford to escape the violence remain. Civilians face frequent air and artillery fire and hunger as supplies are blocked by both warring parties and prices skyrocket.
Medical facilities, including MSF-supported ones that have suspended operations, have frequently come under attack by RSF soldiers demanding treatment or looting supplies. Bashair Hospital has served more than 25,000 people, MSF said, including 9,000 hurt by blasts, gunshot wounds, and other violence.
"Sometimes dozens of people arrived at the hospital at the same time after shelling or airstrikes on residential areas and markets," MSF said in the statement, citing an incident on Sunday where an airstrike one kilometer away drove 50 people to the emergency room, 12 of them already dead.