UPDATE 1-U.S. says reports of killing of Kurdish politician in northeast Syria 'extremely troubling'

The United States has seen reports of the killing of a Kurdish politician and captured Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, a State Department spokesman told Reuters on Sunday, adding that it was looking into the incident.

"We find these reports to be extremely troubling, reflecting the overall destabilization of northeast Syria since the commencement of hostilities on Tuesday," the spokesman said in an email. On Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that reports on the war, said Turkey-backed groups had killed nine civilians, including Hervin Khalaf, secretary-general of the Future Syria Party. Khalaf had been returning from a meeting in Hasaka at the time of the attack in which her driver and an aide were also killed, said Hussein Omar, the Future Syria Party's coordinator in Europe. Party officials including Khalaf have had contacts with U.S. officials since it was founded in 2018, he said.

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