“Maintenance teams entered the Tishreen Dam in the countryside of Manbij city to begin repairing faults in preparation to restore it back to work,” the state-run SANA news agency said.
Tishreen Dam, located on the Euphrates River near the northern Syrian city of Manbij, has for months come under attack by Turkey and its allied Syrian National Army (SNA) militia groups. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) never lost control of the dam.
Authorities in northeast Syria (Rojava) have warned that constant attacks on the dam could lead to its collapse, causing a humanitarian catastrophe.
In early March, the SDF said that Turkey and the Turkish-backed SNA have carried out “intensified attacks” on the dam and the strategic Qere Qozaq bridge since December, when a coalition of rebels led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime after taking Damascus.
The dam's strategic location is critical for Turkey and the SNA, as its capture could pave the way for an advance into other parts of Rojava.
