Kurdish forces backed by Arab rebel groups captured a strategic air base and the adjacent town in northern Syria from rival anti-government factions overnight, a monitoring group said early Thursday, Yahoo news reports.
The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and its Arab allies pushed Islamist rebel fighters out of the Minnigh air base and nearby town north of Syria's second city Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The advance comes after days of fierce clashes that saw YPG forces advance east from the Kurdish stronghold ofAfrin and take over a series of villages before reaching Minnigh.
"With the defeat at Minnigh, Islamist fighters lost the only military airport they held in Aleppo province," observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.