ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on late Thursday claimed that forces affiliated with the Syrian government conducted a drone attack on their positions in Deir ez-Zor province, killing one fighter among their ranks and injuring nine others.

“Armed factions affiliated with the Damascus government carried out a drone attack on one of our positions in the village of Marat, located in the Seven Villages area of eastern Deir ez-Zor countryside,” read an SDF statement, noting that the attack resulted in the death of one of their fighters and the injury of nine.

“Our forces targeted the sources of fire and struck the positions of the attacking factions on the opposite bank of the Euphrates River, achieving direct hits among their ranks,” the Kurdish force added.

Syrian state media on the other hand accused the SDF of targeting “one of the army's deployment points” in Merat “with heavy weapons and suicide drones, seriously injuring one army member.”

The attack comes amid rising tensions between the Kurdish-led force and Damascus-affiliated fighters in northern and eastern Syria, with both sides trading blame for the clashes. The clashes are threatening to derail the integration agreement signed between the two sides in March.

Earlier on Thursday, the SDF accused Damascus-affiliated groups of attempting to infiltrate their positions near northern Syria’s crucial Tishrin Dam, saying one of the attackers was killed and the ambush was foiled.

Syria’s defense ministry, however, blamed the SDF for the attack, saying that the Kurdish-led force "targeted Syrian Arab Army positions around the Tishrin Dam east of Aleppo, killing one soldier and wounding others."

The March deal, signed between Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi, stipulates the integration of the SDF and institutions in the Kurdish-held northeast (Rojava) into the Syrian state.

In September, Sharaa claimed that Arabs comprise more than 70 percent of northeast Syria’s population and that the SDF does not represent the views of all Syrian Kurds.

The US-backed SDF functions as the de facto army of northeast Syria and played a key role in the territorial defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria in 2019.