Syrian army says has taken Euphrates Dam from SDF in Kurdish-held city

• The Syrian Army seized the Tabqa military airport and the Euphrates Dam in Raqa province from Kurdish-led forces on Saturday, marking a significant push to re-establish state control over territory held by the SDF for more than a decade.
• The military escalation comes just one day after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a historic decree recognizing Kurdish as a "national language," a move the Kurdish administration dismissed as an insufficient "first step" toward their aspirations for true constitutional autonomy.

The Syrian Army said Sunday morning it has established full control over the “strategic” city of Tabqa and the Euphrates Dam, effectively expelling the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the area.

Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa confirmed that government forces now oversee the dam’s vital facilities. As the country's primary source of electricity and irrigation, the dam is considered Syria’s most significant strategic resource.

Reports from Syrian media indicate that government forces are now less than five kilometers from the city of Raqqa.

The Syrian Ministry of Defense said it has secured approximately 181 former SDF members who defected to join the Army.

It also said it captured the Tabqa military airport in Raqa province.

Earlier Saturday, they said in a statement to the SANA news agency that their troops had begun entering Tabqa and encircling PKK fighters.

Their latest statement confirmed they had seized the airport pushing out the Kurdish fighters.

Syria's army took control of swathes of the country's north on Saturday, dislodging Kurdish forces from territory over which they held effective autonomy for over a decade.

The government appeared to be seeking to extend its grip on parts of the country under Kurdish control a day after President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree declaring Kurdish a "national language" and granting the minority official recognition.

The Kurds have said the move fell short of their aspirations.

The army drove Kurdish forces from two Aleppo neighbourhoods last week and took control of an area east of the city on Saturday, after implementation stalled on a March deal that was supposed to see Kurdish forces integrated into the state.

Authorities had earlier announced they had seized two oil fields near the city of Tabqa in Raqa province.

An AFP correspondent in Deir Hafer, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Aleppo city, saw several fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) leaving the town and residents returning under heavy army presence.

Syria's army said four soldiers had been killed, while Kurdish forces reported several fighters dead, as both sides traded blame for violating the withdrawal deal.

Kurdish authorities ordered a curfew in the Raqa region after the army designated a swathe of territory southwest of the Euphrates River a "closed military zone" and warned it would target what it said were several military sites.

“Betrayed”

SDF chief Mazloum Abdi on Friday had committed to redeploying his forces from outside Aleppo to east of the Euphrates.

But the SDF claimed Saturday that Damascus "violated the recent agreements and betrayed our forces during the implementation of the withdrawal provisions".

It said Kurdish forces were clashing with troops in an area south of Tabqa, "which was outside the scope of the agreement".

The army meanwhile urged the SDF leadership to "immediately fulfil its announced commitments and fully withdraw to the east of the Euphrates River".

The SDF controls swathes of Syria's oil-rich north and northeast, much of which it captured during the country's civil war and the fight against Daesh over the past decade.

US envoy Tom Barrack met Syrian Kurdish leader Abdi in Erbil on Saturday, the presidency of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region said in a statement.

The United States for years has supported the Kurds but also backs Syria's new authorities.

The US Central Command on Saturday urged "Syrian government forces to cease any offensive actions in the areas between Aleppo and al-Tabqa", in a post on X.

France's President Emmanuel Macron and the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, called for deescalation and a ceasefire, the French presidency said.

Presidential decree

Sharaa's announcement on Friday was the first formal recognition of Kurdish rights since Syria's independence in 1946.

The decree stated that Kurds are "an essential and integral part" of Syria, where they have suffered decades of marginalisation and oppression under former rulers.

It made Kurdish a "national language" and granted nationality to all Kurds, 20 percent of whom had been stripped of it under a controversial 1962 census.

The Kurdish administration in Syria's northeast said the decree was "a first step" but "does not satisfy the aspirations and hopes of the Syrian people".

"Rights are not protected by temporary decrees, but... through permanent constitutions that express the will of the people and all components" of society, it said in a statement.