(AFP)- Syrian regime forces and Kurdish militia fought separate battles with ISIS Monday in a strategic area near the Iraqi and Turkish borders, an activist group said.
Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) launched uncoordinated offensives against ISIS in the northeastern province of Hassakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that after three days of clashes, regime forces bolstered by fighters from Arab tribes had secured control over 23 villages in the center of the province from ISIS.
Syrian state news agency SANA put the number at 31.
"ISIS has launched counter-attacks on regime checkpoints, while the regime fortifies its positions with support from local Arab tribes," Abdel Rahman added.
He said YPG fighters were meanwhile also battling ISIS alongside Arab tribes outside the village of Tal Tamr in Hassakeh's southwest.
"The YPG fighters in Tal Tamr are shelling ISIS around the area to lure ISIS to respond, so they can identify their positions" and call for strikes by the U.S.-led coalition waging an air campaign against ISIS, he said.
"But ISIS is avoiding any response in order not to give away its positions."
YPG spokesman Redur Khalil confirmed to AFP that the Kurdish fighters were conducting "attack-and-retreat operations with ISIS on two fronts.
"The first is around Tal Tamr, in order to retake Assyrian towns in the area, and the second is around Tal Burak," another town between provincial capital Hasakeh and the city of Qamishli, he said.
ISIS launched an attack last week on the areas around Kurdish-controlled Tal Tamr and kidnapped 220 Assyrian Christians from 11 towns.
Nineteen of those kidnapped were freed Sunday after ransoms were paid.
Control of Hassakeh province is split between ISIS, regime fighters and Kurdish militia, with overlap at a number of points.
The area is of strategic importance because it borders both Turkey and Iraq.
A U.N. fact-finding mission meanwhile deployed to Syria's second city Aleppo Monday, despite the rejection by opposition forces of a partial cease-fire there proposed by U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura.
"The mission will aim to assess the situation on the ground and to ensure that, once the freeze is announced, humanitarian aid can significantly increase, and to prepare arrangements to follow up on violations of the freeze," his office said in a statement.
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