At least 13 people, including 11 civilians, have been killed in fighting between paramilitaries close to Iran, who pledge allegiance to the Syrian regime, and mostly Kurdish forces in eastern Syria, an NGO said Friday.

The fighting erupted last Wednesday when pro-Iranian groups launched an attack on areas controlled by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the US and have deployed troops in Deir Ezzor province, according to the Syrian Observatory. of Human Rights.

The non-governmental organization said 11 civilians were killed “in intensive shelling on the night of Thursday to Friday in the village of al-Dakhla from areas where local pro-Iranian organizations have bases.”

In a statement, the SDF confirmed the death of “eleven civilians, most of them women and children”, accusing “regime forces” of Bashar al-Assad of committing “massacre” by shelling the village.

The SDF then bombed areas controlled by groups close to Iran, killing two of its fighters, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, relying on a wide network of sources in the war-torn country.

The mostly Arab province of Deir Ezzor is crisscrossed by the Euphrates River, which forms the border between the areas controlled by the Syrian regime and its allies and those controlled by the SDF.

On Wednesday, paramilitaries close to Iran, flanked by Syrian army officers, managed to cross the Euphrates and came dangerously close to the al-Omar oil field, where US troops are based, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

However, the pro-Iranian paramilitaries were pushed back to the other side of the Euphrates after fighting that killed seven people — a SDF fighter, three pro-Iranian paramilitaries and three civilians — according to the same source.

The battles are recorded against the background of the escalating tension in the region between Iran and its allies on the one hand and Israel and its most important ally, the USA, on the other.

Iran and Hezbollah have vowed to retaliate after the killings of the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Tehran, Ismail Haniyeh, and a senior official of the Lebanese armed movement’s military arm, Fouad Shukr, in a suburb of Beirut, which they attribute to Israel.

The international anti-jihadist coalition, made up mainly of US military personnel, has bases in the Al Omar oil field, Syria’s largest, and a Conoco gas field.

In September 2023, the US intervened to prevent similar fighting from spreading to Deir Ezzor province.

Syria remains fragmented after 13 years of war, which leveled much of its infrastructure, killed more than half a million people and made millions more internally displaced and refugees.