US envoy in Syria to meet with Kurdish officials

A top U.S. official has made a rare visit to Syria, crossing into the Kurdish-held north of the country over the weekend to meet with Kurdish officials and fighters who are battling the Islamic State, U.S. and Kurdish officials said on Sunday.

The visit by President Barack Obama’s special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, Brett McGurk, was the first by a senior U.S. official to the Syrian war zone, Stars and Stripes reported.

Russia has been competing with United States for influence over the Syrian Kurds, who have made most of their recent territorial gains with the help of U.S. airstrikes, The Washington Post reported.

A State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject said McGurk spent two days in the self-proclaimed northern Kurdish enclave of Rojava.

Among the places McGurk visited, the State Department official said, was the small town of Kobane.