The Committees for the Protection of the Kurdish People (YPJ), the main Kurdish local militia in Syria, has battled other militant groups in a bid to carve out an autonomous region in the northeast, where the army is no longer deployed.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that "since Saturday, a total of 19 localities have fallen into the hands of Kurdish fighters."

It also added that the militant groups including al-Qaeda affiliated groups of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Al-Nusra Front have been trying to regroup their militants to reclaim lost ground but to no gain.

The Kurdish and militant groups have long been battling for control of the northeastern Hasake province bordering Turkey and Iraq, which is rich in petroleum and grain.

The latest clashes came a week after Kurdish fighters seized the Yaarubiyeh crossing on the Iraq border, which had been a key transit point for arms.

The fighting between the Kurds and foreign backed militants ostensibly struggling to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has added another level of complexity to the civil war.

NJF/NJF