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HASAKEH - A US-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured the main city in eastern Syria and the main border crossing with Iraq on Friday, taking effective control of Syria's vast eastern desert in two rapid moves.
Two security sources based in eastern Syria said that by Friday afternoon the alliance, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), had taken full control of the city of Deir el-Zor, the third city to fall out of President Bashar Al Assad's control in a week.
Omar Abu Layla, an activist from the media platform Deir Ezzor 24 with contacts in the city, told Reuters that Syrian government forces and Iran-backed Iraqi fighters had pulled out of Deir el-Zor before the SDF swept in.
Shortly afterwards, the Syrian Democratic Forces swept through the nearby Albu Kamal border crossing with Iraq, two Syrian army sources told Reuters.
Deir el-Zor city has changed hands several times since Syria's conflict broke out in 2011 after protests against Assad.
It first fell to rebel forces before the Islamic State group captured it in 2014. The Syrian army, backed by pro-Tehran Iraqi factions, retook it in 2017 and held it until Friday.
The SDF advance came as Syrian rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist group formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, bore down on the central Syrian city of Homs on Friday.
The rebels had already taken the northern city of Aleppo last week and the city of Hama earlier this week, dealing the biggest blows to Assad in years.
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