Clashes in northeast Syria between pro-Ankara fighters backed by the Turkish air force and a Damascus-backed force led by Syrian Kurds left 15 dead on Saturday, a monitor said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that nine pro-Turkish fighters and six members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in a zone between the towns of Tal Tamr and Ras al-Ain.
State news agency SANA said earlier Syrian government forces had entered the provincial borders of Ras al-Ain near Turkey's border on Saturday, an area that was taken by Turkish forces in the latter's weeks-long offensive against Syria's Kurds.
The Observatory said the Syrian government's deployment there was its largest in years.
Syrian government troops had also deployed along a road stretching some 30 kilometres (18 miles) south of the frontier, SANA said.
Turkey and its Syrian proxies on 9 October launched a cross-border attack against Kurdish-held areas, grabbing a 120-kilometre-long (70-mile) swathe of Syrian land along the frontier.
The incursion left hundreds dead and caused 300,000 people to flee their homes, in the latest humanitarian crisis in Syria's brutal eight-year war.
Turkey and Russia this week struck a deal in Sochi for more Kurdish forces to withdraw from the frontier on both sides of that Turkish-held area under the supervision of Russian and Syrian forces.
On Saturday, the Britain-based Observatory said some 2,000 Syrian troops and hundreds of military vehicles were deployed around what Turkey calls its "safe zone".
Under the Turkey-Russia agreement, Russian and Syrian security forces would oversee the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters, some of whom have already started to leave, from the safe zone and conduct joint patrols in parts of the area.
On Friday, the Russian defence ministry said it has sent around 300 more military police officers from Chechnya to the Syrian-Turkish border area.
With AFP, AAP...
