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At least two people have been killed in clashes in Aleppo between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control the country’s northeast. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed a deal in March with the SDF to integrate the group into the country’s state institutions by the end of this year.

The saga of a Los Angeles Army veteran who legally immigrated to the United States, was wounded in combat and self-deported to South Korea earlier this year, became a flashpoint during a testy congressional hearing about the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was grilled Thursday on Capitol Hill about military veterans deported during the immigration crackdown launched earlier this year, including in Los Angeles.

“Sir, we have not deported U.S. citizens or military veterans,” Noem responded when questioned by Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.).

Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) speaks during a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security on Thursday. He was joined on a video call by Sae Joon Park, a U.S. military veteran who self-deported to South Korea.

(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)

An aide then held up a tablet showing a Zoom connection with Purple Heart recipient Sae Joon Park in South Korea. The congressman argued that Park had “sacrificed more for this country than most people ever have” and asked Noem if she would investigate Park’s case, given her discretion as a Cabinet member. Noem pledged to “absolutely look at his case.”

Park, reached in Seoul on Thursday night, said he was skeptical that Noem would follow through on her promise, but said that he had “goosebumps” watching the congressional hearing.

“It was amazing. And then I’m getting tons of phone calls from all my friends back home and everywhere else. I’m so very grateful for everything that happened today,” Park, 56, said, noting that friends told him that a clip of his story appeared on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show Thursday night.

The late-night host featured footage of Park’s moment in the congressional hearing in his opening monologue.

“Is anyone OK with this? Seriously, all kidding aside, we deported a veteran with a Purple Heart?” Kimmel said, adding that Republicans “claim to care so much about veterans, but they don’t at all.”

Park legally immigrated to the United States when he was 7, grew up in Koreatown and the San Fernando Valley, and joined the Army after graduating from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks in 1988.

Sae Joon Park received a Purple Heart while serving in the Army.

(From Sae Joon Park)

The green card holder was deployed to Panama in 1989 as the U.S. tried to depose the nation’s de facto leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. Park was shot twice and honorably discharged. Suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, he self-medicated with illicit drugs, went to prison after jumping bail on drug possession charges, became sober and raised two children in Hawaii.

Earlier this year, when Park checked in for his annual meeting with federal officials to verify his sobriety and employment, he was given the option of being immediately detained and deported, or wearing an ankle monitor for three weeks as he got his affairs in order before leaving the country for a decade.

At the time, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Park had an “extensive criminal history” and had been given a final removal order, with the option to self-deport.

Park chose to leave the country voluntarily. He initially struggled to acclimate in a nation he hasn’t lived in since he was a child, but said Thursday night that his mental state — and his Korean-language skills — have improved.

“It hasn’t been easy. Of course, I miss home like crazy,” he said. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m usually a very positive person, so I feel like everything happens for a reason, and I’m just trying to hang in there until hopefully I make it back home.”

Among Park’s top concerns when he left the United States in June was that his mother, who is 86 and struggling with dementia, would die while he couldn’t return to the county. But her lack of awareness about his situation has been somewhat of a strange blessing, Park said.

“She really doesn’t know I’m even here. So every time I talk to her, she’s like, ‘Oh, where are you?’ And I tell her, and she’s like, ‘Oh, when are you coming home? Oh, why are you there?’” Park said. “In a weird way, it’s kind of good because she doesn’t have to worry about me all the time. But at the same time, I would love to be next to her while she’s going through this.”

South Sudan’s military has moved into the Heglig oilfield under an unprecedented agreement between the country and neighbouring Sudan’s warring parties to safeguard critical energy infrastructure from the country’s civil war.

The deployment on Wednesday came after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the strategic site on December 8, compelling the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) units to retreat across the border into South Sudan, where they reportedly surrendered their weapons.

The agreement aims to neutralise the facility from combat operations as fighting intensifies across Sudan’s Kordofan region, threatening both countries’ primary revenue source.

Official Sudanese government sources revealed to Al Jazeera that high-level contacts have taken place between the Sudanese and South Sudanese leaderships since the beginning of this week, after the RSF mobilized to attack the “Heglig” area. Understandings were reached to secure the evacuation of workers in the field and avoid military confrontations to ensure that the oil field and its facilities are not subjected to sabotage and destruction, and tribal leaders also played a role in that.

The deployment of South Sudan forces was based on a previous oil and security cooperation agreement signed between Khartoum and Juba, which stipulates the protection of oil fields, pipelines and central pumping stations for South Sudan’s oil, in addition to the electricity interconnection project and strengthening cooperation in the energy sector.

The new factor is the involvement of the RSF.

South Sudan People’s Defence Forces Chief of Staff Paul Nang said at Heglig that troops entered under a “tripartite agreement” involving President Salva Kiir, SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, according to state broadcaster SSBC News.

The pact requires both Sudanese forces to withdraw from the area.

Nang stressed that South Sudanese forces would maintain strict neutrality.

“The primary goal is to completely neutralise the Heglig field from any combat operations”, he said, because it “represents an economic lifeline not only for South Sudan but for Sudan as well”.

The deployment followed a deadly drone attack on Tuesday evening that killed dozens, including three South Sudanese soldiers.

SAF confirmed using a drone to target RSF fighters at the facility, though the exact death toll remains unclear. Local media reported that seven tribal leaders and numerous RSF personnel died in the attack.

Approximately 3,900 Sudanese soldiers crossed into South Sudan’s Rubkona County after evacuating Heglig, handing over tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery to South Sudanese authorities, according to Unity State officials in South Sudan.

Thousands of civilians have also fled across the border since Sunday.

Heglig houses a central processing facility able to handle up to 130,000 barrels per day of South Sudanese crude destined for export through Sudanese pipelines. The site also includes Block 6, Sudan’s largest producing field.

Jan Pospisil, a South Sudan expert at Coventry University, explained the strategic calculus behind the unusual arrangement.

“From the SAF’s perspective, they don’t want the RSF to find another possible revenue stream, and it is better from their perspective for South Sudan to take control of the area,” he told Al Jazeera.

He added that the RSF “can’t really defend against air attacks by the SAF, as we saw with this drone strike, and they don’t need money right now”.

The seizure of Heglig marks the latest RSF advance as the conflict’s centre of gravity shifts from Darfur to the vast Kordofan region. The paramilitary force secured complete control of Darfur in October with the fall of el-Fasher, prompting international alarm over mass atrocities.

Activists at the Tawila camp told Al Jazeera that refugees continue arriving, with some forced to sleep outdoors due to insufficient resources.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk repeated a warning he issued last week that he was “extremely worried that we might see in Kordofan a repeat of the atrocities that have been committed in el-Fasher”, amid RSF advances in the region.

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect echoed his warning, with Executive Director Savita Pawnday stressing that Sudan faces “one of the world’s gravest atrocity crises”, where civilians are enduring “unimaginable harm while the international community fails to respond”.

The fighting has triggered displacement, with the International Organization for Migration reporting more than 1,000 people fled South Kordofan province in just two days this week as combat intensified around the state capital, Kadugli.

In el-Fasher, the Sudan Doctors Network reported this week that the RSF is holding more than 19,000 detainees across Darfur prisons, including 73 medical personnel.

The medical advocacy group said cholera outbreaks are killing people due to overcrowding and the absence of adequate healthcare, with more than four deaths recorded weekly from medical neglect.