Syria bombs Kurdish areas in city of Aleppo
Syria’s military heavily bombed Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo on a third day of fighting as Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi warned the violence undermined talks with Damascus.The government and Kurdish forces have traded blame over who started the fighting on Tuesday, which comes as implementation stalls on a deal to merge the Kurds’ administration and military in the northeast into the new government.The worst violence in Aleppo since Syria’s Islamist authorities took power has also highlighted regional tensions between Turkey, which says it is ready to support Syria’s authorities, and Israel, which condemned what it described as attacks against the Kurds.”We’ve gone through very difficult times… my children were terrified,” said Rana Issa, 43, whose family fled Aleppo’s Ashrafiyeh neighbourhood under sniper fire.”Many people want to leave” but are afraid of the shooters, she told AFP.State television, citing a civil defence official, said some 16,000 people had fled the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighbourhoods on Thursday, with at least 17 people dead over three days, according to government and Kurdish force figures.Abdi — who leads the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — said attacks on Kurdish areas “during the negotiation process undermine the chances of reaching understandings”.Abdi visited Damascus on Sunday for further talks on the March deal on integrating his forces, but state media said the discussions were inconclusive.State news agency SANA, citing a military source, said the army launched “intense and concentrated bombardment towards SDF positions” in the two Kurdish districts on Thursday.A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until late Friday, while AFP correspondents said shops, universities and schools remained closed. Civilians fled the two Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods via safe corridors while soldiers searched the men.- Turkey, Israel -Government bombardment resumed after an afternoon deadline passed for civilians to leave. The European Union, whose top officials are due to visit Syria on Friday, voiced “great concern” and called on “all sides to exercise restraint, protect civilians and seek a peaceful and diplomatic solution”.A Turkish defence ministry official said that “should Syria request assistance, Turkey will provide the necessary support”.Neighbouring Israel and Turkey have been vying for influence in Syria since the December 2024 toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey, a close ally of the new Syrian government, had been locked in “intensive consultations” with Damascus and the United States to resolve the deadlock, which he blamed on the SDF’s “uncompromising stance”. Turkey, which shares a 900-kilometre (550-mile) border with Syria, has launched successive offensives to push Kurdish forces from the frontier.Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar meanwhile said that “attacks by the Syrian regime’s forces against the Kurdish minority… are grave and dangerous”.Israel and Syria are in talks to reach a security agreement and this week agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism.Israel bombed Syrian government forces in July when they clashed with the Druze community in the country’s south, saying it was acting to defend the minority, who are also present in Israel.- ‘No to war’ -The SDF controls swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, and was key to the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019.The March integration agreement was to be implemented by the end of 2025, but differences between the sides including Kurdish demands for decentralised rule have stymied progress.Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF, despite Kurdish fighters agreeing to withdraw from the areas in April.Aron Lund, a fellow at the Century International research centre, told AFP that “Aleppo is the SDF’s most vulnerable area”.But “this isn’t an all-out conflict just yet. Both sides are still trying to put pressure on each other and rally international support”, he said.He warned that if the hostilities spiral, “a full Damascus-SDF conflict across northern Syria, potentially with Turkish and Israeli involvement, could be devastating for Syria’s stability”.In the city of Qamishli in Syria’s Kurdish-held northeast, hundreds of people demonstrated on Thursday against the Aleppo violence, AFP correspondents said. “We call on the international community to intervene,” said protester Salaheddine Cheikhmous, 61, while others held banners reading “no to war” and “no to ethnic cleansing”.In Turkey, several hundred people protested in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir decrying the Syrian army attacks, AFP correspondents there said.









