DAMASCUS: Clashes between government personnel and Kurdish-led forces in the north Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least five people on Tuesday (Jan 6), with both sides trading blame over who started the fighting.
Progress has stalled on implementing a March deal to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration and military into Syria’s new government, and tensions have occasionally erupted into clashes, particularly in Aleppo, which has two Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods.
State news agency SANA reported that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had “targeted the area near the Shihan roundabout, resulting in the death of one defence ministry member”.
It later said “three civilians, including two women” were killed in “SDF bombing of residential buildings in Aleppo city’s Al-Midan neighbourhood”.
The SDF, in a statement issued before the state media reports, said groups affiliated with the government “targeted the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood with a reconnaissance drone”, resulting in “the death of one resident and the wounding of two others”.
Aleppo’s Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighbourhoods have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF, despite Kurdish fighters agreeing to withdraw from the areas in April.
Separately, the SDF accused factions affiliated with Syria’s army of attacking the town of Deir Hafer, around 50km east of Aleppo, and near the strategic Tishreen Dam to the city’s northeast.
The Kurdish-led force affirmed its right to “respond legitimately to these attacks”.
The SDF controls large swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, was integral to the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019.
Its integration into the state following the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad a year ago has proven complicated, and the original March agreement was supposed to be implemented by the end of 2025.
On Sunday, SDF chief Mazloum Abdi held further talks with officials in Damascus on integrating the Kurdish-led forces, but state media said no tangible results were achieved.
The Kurds have repeated calls for decentralisation – which Syria’s new Islamist authorities have rejected.
Last month in Aleppo, deadly clashes killed five people, in violence that came after Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan of Türkiye – a close ally of the new authorities – urged the SDF during a visit to Damascus not to be an obstacle to Syria’s stability.