BEIRUT (AP) — Clashes between Kurdish fighters and Turkey-backed opposition gunmen in northern Syria left at the very least 11 fighters lifeless in among the most intense preventing in weeks between the 2 sides, an opposition warfare monitor and a Kurdish spokesman mentioned Tuesday.

Alternate of fireplace and shelling between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkey-backed opposition gunmen who determine because the Syrian Nationwide Military haven’t been unusual since Turkish troops invaded components of northern Syria in October of final yr.

The Monday night time clashes close to the city of Ein Issa had been triggered by an assault by Turkey-backed gunmen on SDF positions, in response to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition warfare monitor. The Observatory mentioned Turkey-backed fighters misplaced 11 gunmen within the battle and an unknown variety of SDF fighters had been additionally killed or wounded.

An SDF spokesman who goes by the title of Mervan Qamishlo confirmed the clashes, saying that the group’s fighters had been repelling a Turkey-backed assault. He didn’t touch upon what number of SDF gunmen had been killed.

A spokesman for the Turkey-backed fighters didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Turkey says Kurdish fighters in Syria are linked to the Kurdistan Employees Occasion, or PKK, that has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey’s primarily Kurdish southeast area and is taken into account a terrorist group by Turkey, the USA and the European Union.

The U.S.-backed SDF performed a serious position in defeating the Islamic State group in Syria that misplaced its final sliver of land in March final yr. The SDF is holding hundreds of IS militants in jails it runs.