Iran International:

US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Syrian Kurdish fighters, seized the eastern city of Deir ez-Zor and a nearby Iraqi-Syrian border crossing used by Iran to arm Lebanon's Hezbollah, Reuters reported on Friday.

The Al-Bukamal crossing fell under SDF control on Friday, Reuters said citing two Syrian army sources. The border crossing in Deir ez-Zor was a key channel used by the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to transport weapons to Lebanon through Syria.

Losing the Iraqi crossing could represent a huge blow to the regional hegemony Iran built up in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq and effectively split a so-called Shi'ite crescent spanning from the Iranian plateau to the Mediterranean.

It had united the Islamic Republic with armed co-religionists which included Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, a kaleidoscope of militias there propping it up, the Syrian government under decades of Assad family rule and Hezbollah.

The region is home to multiple military bases of Iran-backed Shi'ite militia forces from neighboring Iraq and as far afield as Afghanistan. Local activists said the Syrian army and Tehran-backed forces had pulled out of Deir el-Zor before the SDF advance.

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