US officials visit Syria's pro-Turkish rebel area

Three members of the United States Congress made a rare visit Sunday to rebel-held territory in northern Syria controlled by pro-Turkish factions, an AFP journalist at the scene said.

The delegation comprising Republican Congressmen Ben Cline, Scott Fitzgerald, and French Hill entered Syria from Turkey through the Bab al-Salama border crossing, where they were welcomed by a banner reading "Welcome to Free Syria" and revolutionary flags.

Congresswoman Victoria Spartz was also set to visit, but could not due to problems with the itinerary.

The delegation visited a hospital in the city of Azaz in Aleppo province and met orphans of the Syrian civil war, which has killed more than 500,000 people since it erupted in 2011.

The visit's "purpose is to see the reality of the liberated areas," Yasser el-Hajji, spokesperson for the Turkey-backed interim government, told AFP.

However, the delegation's visit had to be curtailed for security reasons, a member of their escort told AFP.

The hardline Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) controls much of Syria's last pocket of armed opposition, which includes a significant part of Idlib province as well as bordering territories of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces.

Other rebel factions, supported by Turkey to varying degrees, also control parts of northern Syria.

"To avoid sparking controversy in the United States, they ultimately did not proceed towards Jindires in the territories controlled by HTS," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

HTS, which is lead by the former Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda, is classified as a terrorist group by Washington.

"The members of Congress wanted to assess the work of the interim government to study the possibility of delivering humanitarian aid via Bab el-Salama instead of Bab el-Hawa," added the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the ground in Syria for its reports.

Under a 2014 agreement, most international aid including food, water and medicine entered from Turkey via the Bab al-Hawa crossing without the authorisation of Damascus.

The United Nations last month failed to reach consensus on extending the mechanism through the Security Council, but subsequently announced that aid deliveries would resume through Bab al-Hawa.

The protests in the south erupted late last week after the government ended fuel subsidies, dealing a heavy blow to Syrians already reeling from years of war and economic crisis.