Syria’s army said its operation in a Kurdish neighbourhood of Aleppo was nearing completion early Saturday and urged fighters from the minority to surrender themselves and their weapons.Government forces began striking the Sheikh Maqsud district overnight after the Kurdish fighters defied a deadline to withdraw during a temporary ceasefire.A military source told the official SANA news agency that the combing operation in Sheikh Maqsud was “more than 90 percent” complete, and that “a number of SDF members” had been arrested. In a statement posted by the Ministry of Defence, Syria’s army said “the only remaining option for the armed elements in the Sheikh Maqsud area of Aleppo is to surrender themselves and their weapons immediately”.The violence in Syria’s second city erupted after efforts to integrate the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and military into the country’s new government stalled.Since the start of the fighting on Tuesday, at least 21 civilians have been killed, according to figures from both sides, and tens of thousands have fled Aleppo. The clashes, some of the most intense since Syria’s new Islamist authorities took power, present yet another challenge as the country struggles to reunify after ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.Both sides blame the other for starting the violence.Early Friday, Syrian authorities announced a six-hour window for the Kurdish fighters to leave, but they instead refused to “surrender” and vowed to defend their districts.In response, Syria’s army warned it would renew strikes on military targets in Sheikh Maqsud and urged civilians to get out ahead of the district’s takeover by security forces.An AFP correspondent saw residents laden with belongings fleeing before the two-hour humanitarian corridor closed.- ‘Fierce’ resistance -Kurdish forces reported coming under artillery and drone attacks and claimed in a post on social media to be mounting a “fierce and ongoing resistance”.The army said three soldiers had been killed by Kurdish forces, while state television accused them of launching drones on residential areas of Aleppo.A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until late Saturday.The SDF controls swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, and was key to the defeat of the Islamic State group in 2019. But Ankara views its main component as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which agreed last year to end its four-decade armed struggle against Turkey.Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, accused Syria’s authorities of “choosing the path of war” by attacking Kurdish districts and of “seeking to put an end to the agreements that have been reached”.”We are committed to them and we are seeking to implement them,” she told AFP.- US pressure? -The March integration agreement was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralised rule, have stymied progress.Ahmad said that “the United States is playing a mediating role… we hope they will apply pressure to reach an agreement”.A diplomatic source told AFP that US envoy Tom Barrack was headed to Damascus.Turkey, which shares a 900-kilometre (550-mile) border with Syria, has launched successive offensives to push Kurdish forces from the frontier.Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed the situation in a call with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and said he was determined to “end the illegal armed presence” in the city, a Syrian presidency statement said.UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric expressed alarm over the impact of the fighting on civilians and called on all parties “to swiftly return to negotiations to ensure the full implementation of the 10 March agreement”. Nanar Hawach, senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the renewed clashes cast doubt on the government’s ability to gain the trust of minority factions and sow the country back together after 14 years of civil war. “If the fighting escalates, international actors will wonder about Damascus’s capacity to govern Syria’s heterogeneous society,” he added.Syria’s authorities have committed to protecting minorities, but sectarian bloodshed rocked the Alawite and Druze communities last year.burs-str-lb/tc

Iranians took to the streets in new protests Friday to press the biggest movement against the Islamic republic in more than three years, as authorities sustained an internet blackout as part of a crackdown that has left dozens dead.On Friday, US President Donald Trump said it looked like Iran’s leaders were “in big trouble” and repeated an earlier threat of military strikes if peaceful protesters are killed.”It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump said.Protests have taken place across Iran for 13 days in a movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living, with growing calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, which ousted the pro-Western shah.In Tehran’s northern Sa’adat Abad district, people banged pots and chanted slogans deriding supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed.Other social media images showed similar protests elsewhere in Tehran, while videos published by Persian language television channels based outside Iran showed large numbers taking part in new protests in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom.These protests followed giant demonstrations on Thursday that were the biggest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protest movement sparked by the custody death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress rules for women.The rallies came as internet monitor NetBlocks said authorities imposed a “nationwide internet shutdown” for the last 24 hours that was violating the rights of Iranians and “masking regime violence”.Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” aims to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, raising a previous toll of 45 issued the day earlier, said at least 51 protesters, including nine children, have been killed by security forces and hundreds more injured.In a joint statement Friday, the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada and the European Union issued a strong condemnation and called on Iran to “immediately end the use of excessive and lethal force by its security forces”.”Too many lives — over 40 to date — have already been lost.”- ‘Stained with blood’ -In his first comments on the escalating protests since January 3, Khamenei on Friday called the demonstrators “vandals” and “saboteurs”.Khamenei, in a speech broadcast on state TV, said US President Donald Trump’s hands “are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, in apparent reference to Israel’s June war against the Islamic republic, which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.He predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.”Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, it will not back down in the face of saboteurs.”Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on a visit to Lebanon on Friday accused Washington and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, which a US State Department spokesperson called “delusional”.- ‘Red line’ -The son of the shah of Iran ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, US-based Reza Pahlavi, urged Trump to intervene to help the protesters, adding “the people will be on the streets again in an hour”.But judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei warned that punishment of “rioters” would be “decisive, the maximum and without any legal leniency”.The intelligence branch of the Revolutionary Guards, the security force entrusted with ensuring the preservation of the Islamic republic, said the “continuation of this situation is unacceptable” and protecting the revolution was its “red line”.Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who lives in exile, warned security forces could be preparing to commit a “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout”.The leaders of France, the United Kingdom and Germany on Friday issued a joint statement condemning what they described as the “killing of protestors” in Iran, urging the authorities to “exercise restraint”.Meanwhile, Iranian state television on Friday broadcast images of thousands of people attending counter-protests and brandishing slogans in favour of the authorities in some Iranian cities.The Haalvsh rights group, which focuses on the Baluch Sunni minority in the southeast, said security forces fired on protesters in Zahedan, the main city of Sistan-Baluchistan province, after Friday prayers, causing an unspecified number of casualties.Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint statement that since the start of the protests on December 28, security forces “have unlawfully used rifles, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, water cannon, tear gas and beatings to disperse, intimidate and punish largely peaceful protesters”.