Damascus, Syria - Recent clashes in Aleppo between Syria’s security services and forces associated with the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) highlight the fraying of a fragile peace, as tensions mount and negotiations stall in the face of an impending deadline.
The precise details remain unclear as to how exactly clashes were sparked in Aleppo last week on Monday.
According to reports by state-run SANA that morning, a mysterious explosion occurred in Aleppo’s Tariq Bin Ziyad park, just west of the majority Kurdish neighbourhood of Ashrafiyeh, after the Syrian military discovered an SDF tunnel leading out of the neighbourhood.
This discovery set off a scrambled security clampdown, which was soon met with street protests from Kurdish residents of Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsoud against the closing of checkpoints ringing the neighbourhood.
As the day wore on, and shots were fired near street protests, it descended into violent clashes, including the use of artillery and heavy weapons, between government security services and forces associated with the SDF. One Syrian soldier was killed and seven were injured in the fighting.
Meanwhile, the SDF claimed that escalations were due to “provocations by government-affiliated factions”.
It seems that the clashes came on the back of growing tensions; the road connecting Aleppo to SDF territory was closed by the government at the end of September, resulting in heavy clashes in the frontier town of Deir Hafer.
As a result, the SDF “may have felt the closing of checkpoints in Aleppo was in preparation for a wider operation,” Wladimir van Wilgenberg, an Iraq-based Kurdish affairs analyst, explained to The New Arab.
By the early hours of the morning, a “comprehensive ceasefire across the north and northeast” was announced, and an unsteady peace has largely held since.
'We saw what happened in Suweida and the coast'
Majd (name changed) was sheltering in his home in Ashrafiyeh during the clashes when he spoke to The New Arab over the phone. “We are still hearing the sound of heavy weapons and explosions,” he murmured. “The fighting is happening maybe 500 metres from our home.”
He elected to remain at home with his family, though several of his neighbours had already fled the neighbourhood. “It's pretty chaotic out there right now, and I just think getting out will be too hard, so it's better to stay here.”
As fighting escalated, many were terrified that events could seriously spiral. A Kurdish journalist messaged The New Arab simply stating, “things are not good. Events are developing quickly, and it looks like a real war will start between the government and the SDF now”.
In Syria, events can unravel in rapid, unexpected and often bloody ways. In March, a failed Assadist uprising on the coast resulted in days of grim sectarian massacres targeting the region's Alawites.
In July, a communal kidnapping in Suweida brought days of revenge killings between Bedouin and Druze communities, triggering interventions by the Syrian government and Israel - alongside a new set of sectarian violations.
The shadow of these events hung heavily over the fighting in Aleppo.“We have all seen what happened in Suweida and the coast,” explained Majd. “I am a Kurd displaced from Afrin, we have experience of being targeted on the basis of your identity, so of course we feel the danger.”
In 2018, hundreds of thousands of Kurds were displaced from Afrin following an invasion by Turkish armed forces and the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), who were accused of human rights abuses during the operation.
Yet, with a ceasefire quickly secured in Aleppo, fears of spiralling escalation have been arrested. “Things are calm now,” Majd said, although normalcy has not returned. For days, the neighbourhoods remained closed by government security services.
“The humanitarian situation is not good. The bakeries are not working, and there is not enough food,” he explained. “We are still besieged.”
By Thursday, three entrances to the neighbourhoods had been reopened to foot traffic but still closed to vehicles, limiting the availability of supplies.
The situation in Aleppo
Aleppo’s two Kurdish neighbourhoods of Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsoud are the SDF’s only enclaves outside of the autonomous north-east.
In April, a key deal was reached between the government and the local SDF-aligned civil council that recognised their “distinct security, administrative and service status”.
As part of this agreement, the SDF agreed to withdraw its military forces from the neighbourhoods - although the deal permitted their internal security forces, the ‘Asayish’, to remain in place.
Several heavily armed convoys have made their way to the country’s north-east in the intervening months. However, last week's clashes make clear that a significant contingent of heavily armed fighters remains in the neighbourhoods.
“It's unclear what heavy weaponry and how many fighters remain in Aleppo,” explains Alexander McKeever, a researcher behind the This Week in Northern Syria blog. “Although it's likely that some fighters have been transferred to the Asayish.”
This would only further muddy the waters regarding the SDF’s military strength on the ground.
McKeever believes that Aleppo’s Kurdish neighbourhoods hold “more symbolic value” than other areas it took over during its operations against Islamic State (IS), which may make them more reluctant to surrender control.
“It's a neighbourhood that has remained under [their] control since the beginning of the war,” he explains, despite clashes with rebel groups during the early period of the civil war and a soft siege implemented by the Assad regime after it took control of Aleppo in 2016.
However, these clashes have served to highlight the "tenuous position” that these neighbourhoods, now deep in government territory, find themselves in.
Ultimately, though “all points of contact remain potential flashpoints,” McKeever clarifies. The spark that ignites a wider conflict could also come at any number of points along the 710km stretch of the Euphrates River dividing government and SDF-controlled territory.
The US put its foot down
In the early hours of Monday morning, Mazloum Abdi, the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces, accompanied by senior SDF leadership, flew to Damascus - reportedly in US military helicopters.
Abdi met with Syrian President, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in the presence of US Special Envoy, Tom Barrack. This was their second meeting since the 10 March agreement that set out the integration of SDF military and civilian structures into the Syrian state.
The rapid ceasefire agreement was likely a result of a strong French and American intervention, believes Wilgenburg, but days later, a Syrian soldier was killed and several were injured in clashes between the government and SDF, near the strategic Tishreen Dam in eastern Aleppo province.
Both sides have accused the other of repeatedly violating the ceasefire.
“The biggest development from this is the active role the US and France played in stopping the fighting and the pressure they put on both sides to meet,” Wilgenberg added.
This clearly shows the lack of appetite from US officials for a conflict between the new government and the SDF.
The US strategy is focused on finding a solution for the “imprisoned Islamic State fighters, and facilitating a smooth [US] withdrawal without allowing a vacuum to emerge,” explains McKeever.
However, their strategy to achieve that seems somewhat ad hoc, frequently "fluctuating between forcing the SDF to integrate or pressuring Damascus to make concessions”.
What now for negotiations?
The 10 March agreement to integrate the two disparate blocs was a major political coup for Ahmed Al-Sharaa at the time. However, over the subsequent six months, negotiations have been slow, obstinate and “notoriously opaque”, explains McKeever.
The biggest blow came after the Suweida crisis in July. On 8 August, the Druze separatist leader Hikmat Al Hijri, spoke remotely at an SDF-chaired conference in Hasakeh - in an act that was quickly condemned by the government as platforming “separatist figures involved in hostile acts”.
Soon after, they suspended the Paris track of negotiations.
At that point, talks appeared entirely stalled. With the 10 March agreement citing the end of the year as the deadline for integration, there are fears that conflict could erupt again.
“No one knows how significant this deadline actually is, and I don’t think much can discourage the SDF from trying to preserve their system in some form,” claims McKeever.
To agree to a deal and give up their autonomy is to “capitulate and admit that 10,000 martyrs died in vain,” he argues. “They never gave in to the demands of the former regime, Russia or Turkey, so why now - the only thing that could change this is if the US actually withdraws”.
The hurried assembly of senior US, SDF, and Syrian leadership last week to avert a crisis certainly signals a willingness by all parties to avoid an uncontrolled military escalation.
It also appears to have borne some fruit. Speaking to AFP, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi announced this week that he had reached a "preliminary agreement" with Damascus on the SDF’s integration into Syria’s military and security forces.
Abdi expressed a “shared determination and strong will to accelerate the implementation” of the 10 March deal. Disagreements remain, however, over key issues such as decentralisation.
Any conflict between the SDF and Damascus would make the bouts of violence that Syria has witnessed since the fall of the regime appear minor.
According to the SDF’s numbers, they have 100,000 soldiers within their ranks - many battle-hardened after a decade-long fight against the Islamic State, and well-armed by their American patrons.
The SDF has also been building extensive defensive fortifications all along the frontline in preparation for an impending war.
McKeever believes that with Turkish airpower, Damascus could eventually win - but it would be a long and bloody campaign, and the government's capacity to then govern a region that has been de facto independent for over a decade is questionable.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa has claimed that he blocked Turkey from launching an intervention into the Kurdish heartlands in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the regime, fearing that any military solution may burden Syria with a sustained insurgency in the north-east.
However, in a recent meeting with journalists, he admitted that time may be running out. Reportedly saying “the northeast is a national security issue for Turkey. They simply won't accept the status quo”.
For those like Majd, already displaced from his home in Afrin, they had hoped that this chapter of war had come to an end.
“We Syrians are used to war by now. After the fall, we thought that maybe we could live normal lives again,” he said. “But you never really know what could happen.”
Cian Ward is a journalist based in Damascus, covering conflict, migration, and humanitarian issues
Follow him on X: @CP__Ward