Syria on Sunday denied targeting a village in Aleppo province a day earlier, instead blaming Kurdish-led forces for an attack that a monitor said killed seven civilians.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had reported that five women and two children were killed Saturday in the village of Umm Tina, in the Deir Hafer area of Aleppo province, in bombardment carried out 鈥榖y Syrian army personnel鈥�.
A semi-autonomous Kurdish administration controls swathes of north and northeast Syria, including oil and gas fields, with the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as its de facto army.
The Deir Hafer area is controlled by the SDF but located along the front lines between the Syrian army and the force, and periodic clashes take place in the area, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman had said.
In a statement carried by state news agency SANA, the defence ministry said that 鈥榦ur forces detected the launch of rockets from one of the SDF launchers towards the village of Umm Tina鈥�.
It said the reason for the launch was unknown.
鈥榃e emphasise our categorical denial鈥� of reports that the army targeted Umm Tina, the statement said, adding that 鈥榯he side that bombed the villages is the SDF鈥�.
It accused the force of continuing to 鈥榮ystematically target civilians in the east of Aleppo province鈥�.
Earlier Saturday, the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had reported that 鈥榓rmed clashes involving drones and heavy weapons鈥� erupted after the army targeted SDF military positions in the Deir Hafer area.
The SDF in a statement had accused 鈥榩ro-Turkey factions affiliated with the Damascus government鈥� of carrying out the bombardment on Umm Tina.
After Islamist forces toppled long-time Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, the new authorities and the SDF in March agreed on a deal on integrating the Kurdish administration鈥檚 civil and military institutions into the central government.
But differences between the two sides have held up implementation, and the Kurds have called for decentralisation, which Damascus has rejected.