Clashes erupted again on Monday between the YPG, the U.S.-backed offshoot of the PKK terrorist group, and Arab tribes in eastern Syria, where the sides had battled for weeks, Syrian media and activists reported.

After nearly two weeks of silence, Arab tribes launched their counteroffensive in the countryside east of Deir el-Zour province, local sources said, close to the Iraqi border where hundreds of American troops are based.

The YPG then deployed hundreds of terrorists and imposed a curfew to prevent the operations of Arab fighters from spreading across several towns, including Giranic, Suveyden, al-Tayyene, Ziyben and Havayic, they added.

Just two weeks prior, the terrorists attacked settlements in these villages, forcing hundreds of families to flee and seek refuge in villages under the control of Arab tribes.

Taking advantage of the power vacuum created by the Syrian civil war since 2011, the PKK/YPG invaded several Syrian provinces, including Deir el-Zour, with the help of Washington. The terrorists forced many locals to migrate, bringing in their militants to change the regional demographic.

Since 2015, the PKK/YPG has occupied Arab-majority Deir el-Zour, a resource-rich region bordering Iraq, bisected by the Euphrates River and home to dozens of tribal communities. The terrorists have been forcibly recruiting the children of these communities. It has also seized the region’s oil wells – Syria’s largest – and smuggles oil to the Syrian regime despite U.S. sanctions to generate revenue for its activities.

Al-Mayadeen, a pan-Arab TV station, said several fighters from the PKK/YPG were killed after Arab gunmen took over several parts of Ziyben on Monday.

Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some of the Arab fighters had crossed from government-held areas.

Local media in the province reported that some PKK/YPG members had fled the area as the clashes intensified. There were no further details.

The PKK/YPG has accused the Syrian regime of inciting the violence by allowing the rival Arab fighters to cross the Euphrates River. Local tribes have been fighting against the PKK/YPG’s oppressive policies, including arbitrary arrests and kidnappings since the occupation. The terrorists have assassinated tribe leaders to yoke local groups over the years.

The clashes first erupted in late August when two weeks of fighting killed 25 PKK/YPG terrorists, 29 members of Arab tribal groups and gunmen, as well as nine civilians, according to the PKK/YPG.

After the clashes began, the Arab tribes liberated a total of 33 villages from PKK/YPG occupation in operations in Deir el-Zour, as well as Raqqa and Hasakah provinces and the rural areas of Manbij district in Aleppo.

However, in a bid to prevent civilian casualties, the tribes withdrew from these villages and sat down with Washington to negotiate.

The Syrian regime of Bashar Assad in Damascus sees the PKK/YPG forces as secessionist fighters and has denounced their alliance with the U.S. in the war against Daesh and their self-ruled enclave in eastern Syria.

Meanwhile, Türkiye, which has troops inside Syria, and Turkish-backed opposition groups in Syria’s northwest routinely clash with the PKK/YPG, which seeks to establish a terror corridor along the country’s border.

Since 2016, Türkiye has carried out successive ground operations – Euphrates Shield in 2016, Olive Branch in 2018 and Peace Spring in 2019 – to expel the PKK/YPG and Daesh forces from border areas of northern Syria, as well as Iraq and to enable the peaceful settlement of residents.

Ankara has also repeatedly called on its NATO ally to cut off support to the PKK/YPG, something heavily weighing on bilateral relations.

After the clashes intensified earlier this month, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan urged Washington and "other relevant states" to "end their policy of suppressing the region’s Arabs through the YPG."

"The painting of the YPG terrorist group as legitimate must end, or conflicts we see (in Deir el-Zour) are just the beginning," Fidan warned.