Kurdish forces and the Syrian army fought separate battles with Islamic State around Hasaka city in northeast Syria overnight as the hardline group tried to capture more areas of the major urban center near the Iraqi border, a monitor said on Saturday. Islamic State launched an assault on government-held areas of Hasaka early on Thursday and the United Nations says the violence is estimated to have displaced up to 120,000 people. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground, said the Kurdish YPG militia fought with Islamic State fighters on the outskirts of the Ghwyran neighborhood in Hasaka’s southeast overnight. Hasaka is divided into areas run separately by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Kurdish authorities and has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Christians. It is important to all sides fighting in an area that sits between Islamic State-held […]