The unending cycle of violence that is Syria got even murkier this week with U.S.-backed forces clashing with those of the Syrian government backed by Russia and Iran in the far northeastern region, while farther to the west the U.S.-supported coalition was being threatened by Turkish forces.

Islamic State fighters may indeed be on the run — for which the poor beleaguered people of Syria are grateful — but the fighting over valuable territory and oil rights lingers on.

U.S. advisers called in a rare strike Thursday on Syrian-backed forces in Deir el-Zour, site of most of Syria’s oil and gas fields. Col. Thomas F. Veale told the Associated Press, the move was in “self defense” after forces loyal to Bashar Assad crossed a “deconfliction line” agreed to by Washington and Moscow.

Veale also confirmed the assumption was that the pro-regime fighters were trying to recapture the oil fields that the U.S.-backed coalition wrested from ISIS a year ago.

In Manbij to the west on the Turkish border, another U.S. military official, Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, was even more candid with the New York Times reporter accompanying him to the front, where the threat of a face-off with Turkey remained a possibility.

“You hit us, we will respond aggressively,” Funk said. “We will defend ourselves.”

The fact that Turkey, a NATO ally, has been saber-rattling in the region makes the potential for conflict truly unique, if not downright bizarre.

Talking about the U.S. support for fighters in the region, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to his party, “They tell us, ‘Don’t come to Manbij.’ We will come to Manbij to hand over these territories to their rightful owners.”

Of course, the “rightful owners” are the coalition of Arab and Kurdish fighters who have already shed their blood for that territory against ISIS — a point apparently lost on a once-trusted U.S. ally now hardly worthy of that name.