Kurdish forces are in near full control of Syria's city of Hasaka after battling pro-government militias, a monitoring group says.
The battle over Hasaka marks the most violent confrontation between the Kurdish YPG militia and Damascus in more than five years of civil war, and victory would be a major boost for the Kurds despite Turkish efforts to curb their gains.
Ankara, which its fighting militants from its own Kurdish minority, has begun to step up efforts to curb the growth of Kurdish influence in Syria, where it backs Sunni Arab groups that are also hostile to the YPG.
On Tuesday Hasaka's remaining government officials were confined to a few buildings in the city centre while the rest of the city was under Kurdish control, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Director Rami Abdulrahman said.
"Even if they (pro-government militias) keep a symbolic presence, it is a big defeat for the regime in Hasaka," said Abdulrahman.
The YPG, a critical part of the US-backed campaign against Islamic State, controls swathes of northern Syria where Kurdish groups have established autonomy from Damascus since the start of the Syria war in 2011.
"The overwhelming majority of the city is under the control of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Asayish, apart from the security zone," said Naser Haj Mansour, the Kurdish official, adding that some fighting was still underway.
The Asayish is a YPG-affiliated security force.
He described the outcome as a "step forward" for the Kurdish groups that want a federal solution to the Syrian war to safeguard their autonomy. The Kurdish forces also seized five villages from pro-government militiamen, the Observatory said.
YPG-controlled areas of northern Syria include an uninterrupted 400km stretch of the Syrian-Turkish border from the frontier with Iraq to the Euphrates river, and a pocket of territory in northwestern Syria called Afrin.
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