US won’t tolerate prolonged conflict, risk ‘10,000 ISIL prisoners escaping’

A diplomatic option to end the fighting between the Syrian army and the SDF “is still on the table”, a security analyst says. “What the Syrian government here is doing is trying to increase its leverage over the SDF. It feels like it’s been offering the SDF very, very good deals – for example, recognising the Kurds as a distinct minority group in Syria, their language, their holidays,” Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer at King’s College London, said. “But if you ask Syrian government sources, they say they’ve got nothing in return,” he added.