Two deals—an April agreement covering administration of Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods and a landmark March agreement to integrate all SDF civilian and military institutions into the central government—remain unfulfilled. The SDF continues to insist on consolidating its autonomous project, while Damascus rejects anything less than a unified state. 

Under the April agreement, SDF forces in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh were to withdraw to the east of the Euphrates River, while Syrian Ministry of Interior and Kurdish Asayish police forces would manage security. Hundreds of SDF fighters did withdraw in April, but the terms have not been fully implemented. The result, for thousands of residents, has been prolonged uncertainty.

In the days before clashes broke out in the two neighborhoods on Monday, residents had circulated “strong rumors” of a “new war” coming, Ashrafieh resident Gulistan Yusef (a pseudonym) told Syria Direct. 

Their fears grew at the end of September, as Syrian government forces raised earthen berms outside Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh. The fortifications violated the April agreement, which stipulated the removal of berms from public roads while maintaining checkpoints. 

The situation exploded on the morning of October 6, when the sound of an explosion rang out over Aleppo city. The Syrian government said its forces had detected and destroyed a tunnel dug by the SDF reaching into Damascus-controlled neighborhoods. 

By Monday evening, all roads leading into Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh were closed. Civilians could leave, but not return. “Rumors spread about government forces imposing a siege on the Kurdish neighborhoods,” Yusef said. “We chose to stay. Fleeing is no longer a solution.” 

Night fell, and armed confrontations intensified. Rockets fired into Damascus-controlled neighborhoods by the SDF killed one civilian and injured five others, including two women, according to the Syrian Civil Defense. The bombardment also killed one member of the interior ministry’s Internal Security Forces, while three others were injured, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). 

Government forces targeted Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh with mortars, but no deaths or injuries were reported, four sources there told Syria Direct. Local media outlets and activists posted pictures of infrastructure damaged by shelling on social media. Residents also reported breathing difficulties after government forces deployed tear gas to disperse protesters denouncing the closure of roads into the neighborhoods.

The following day, a Kurdish delegation led by SDF commander Mazloum Abdi arrived in Damascus for a previously planned meeting with Syrian Minister of Defense Marhaf Abu Qasra—alongside United States (US) Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack and the commander of US Central Command Brad Cooper—to discuss the implementation of the March agreement signed by Abdi and transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa. 

Following the discussions, the two sides announced a comprehensive ceasefire agreement had been reached “to be implemented immediately” on all lines of contact.

‘The end of sorrow’

During the clashes in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, a number of residents left the neighborhoods on foot. Nariman Muhammad, 52, refused to leave, despite the pleas of her four children. “Where would we go,” she said. “Violations are everywhere, even in our native Afrin.” 

In Ashrafieh, where she lives, people “want the Asayish [the Autonomous Administration police force] to stay to protect us,” MuHammad told Syria Direct. Residents try to “avoid contact with the transitional government’s general security, and avoid leaving the neighborhood unless necessary.” 

“If not for the SDF presence, the factions would have committed heinous massacres like what happened on the coast and in Suwayda. I prefer that the neighborhood remain under SDF administration,” Yusef said. “We still don’t trust the new Syrian administration.”

“We hope that we will be recognized as Kurds, and granted the authority to administer our areas and neighborhoods,” Muhammad added. 

Ahmad Omar (a pseudonym), 23, who lives in Sheikh Maqsoud, felt similarly. “Like everyone I know, I do not want our Kurdish-majority neighborhoods to be run by general security,” he said. “We reject any administration outside the framework of the Autonomous Administration.”

“Many residents of these neighborhoods are displaced from Afrin, and they have suffered from the actions of the mercenary gangs,” Omar added, referring to Turkish-backed factions of the former opposition Syrian National Army [SNA]. “They consider these neighborhoods to be a second home, and it is very difficult to let them go.” 

Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh have been controlled by the SDF since 2015. After Turkish-backed factions drove local Kurdish forces out of the Afrin area of northwestern Aleppo province in 2018, hundreds of thousands of civilians were displaced, and many found refuge in the two neighborhoods.

Persistent security tensions directly impact “our quality of life,” Yusef explained. She is constantly tense, “afraid of clashes breaking out when the children go to school.” “With the security tensions, it is difficult to find a job outside the neighborhood. You’re scared of being forced to stay outside if [something happened after] you went to work,” she added. Many employers “refuse to hire people who live in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh. When I apply, I write that I live in the Syriac Quarter.” 

Since the start of the week, the price of some goods rose slightly in the Kurdish neighborhoods, though they are still available, Yusef said. She hopes “a settlement will be reached that will spare us from a war, and that we can continue to live normally. We want this stage to be the end of sorrow.” 

On Thursday morning, roads leading to Ashrafieh were open and residents could again enter and exit under the supervision of government security forces. The road to Sheikh Maqsoud is still restricted, with civilians only allowed to leave, according to state-run al-Ikhbariyah TV. 

Syrian Ministry of Interior spokesperson Noureddin al-Baba denied there was any government siege of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, but rather “an organization of transit and entry” to the neighborhoods, he told Syria Direct. “This is because, over the past months, the SDF has made its areas—especially Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh—a haven for remnants of the former regime and drug traffickers, which poses a security threat to Aleppo and Syria as a whole,” he contended. 

“The Syrian government will not allow a quarter of Syria’s area to become a haven for gangs, [regime] remnants and drug traffickers,” he added, referring to the total area controlled by the SDF. 

Strengthening bargaining positions

The Syrian Ministry of Defense said on Thursday that SDF forces targeted Syrian army positions in the vicinity of the Tishreen Dam in eastern Aleppo province, killing one soldier and injuring others. “Less than 48 hours after the ceasefire was announced, the SDF violated the agreement more than 10 times by targeting army positions,” the ministry’s media directorate said. 

SDF forces continue to fortify their positions on all axes, the ministry said, adding it had detected “inciting calls for action targeting the army and security forces in Aleppo city.”

The SDF said in a statement that its forces thwarted an “infiltration by Damascus government gunmen in the Tishreen Dam countryside” and “immediately” dealt with the attackers. 

In response, one military official at the Ministry of Defense—a former SNA commander—said “the SDF is trying to provoke the Syrian government and drag it into an armed confrontation in order to get out of the March agreement, signed under American pressure.” 

“SDF provocations have been going on for weeks, from Deir e-Zor to Aleppo, but the Ministry of Defense’s orders are to deal with the sources of fire and infiltration attempts,” he told Syria Direct on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “The Syrian state does not want to impose a military solution—only to avoid bloodshed.” 

Interior ministry spokesperson al-Baba echoed his remarks. “What happened is the natural result of continued SDF provocations and its shirking of implementing the March 10 agreement,” he said. This week’s discovery of a tunnel dug by SDF forces in Aleppo “towards rear positions of the Syrian army, with the intent of ambushing them, hindered their plans.”

“The Syrian state is pursuing a diplomatic and peaceful solution to spare civilians the dangers of conflict and bloodshed, but the SDF’s intransigence undermines peaceful solutions,” al-Baba added. 

Political analyst and defected brigadier general Mustafa al-Farhat described this week’s events in Aleppo city as a part of “recurring incidents in the absence of a permanent solution.” The SDF “is using them as a negotiating lever to raise the ceiling of [its] demands, which is familiar political behavior,” he told Syria Direct: “exploiting a crisis to improve the terms of negotiations.” On that basis, he believes “the SDF is the one that concocted the problem in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh.”

The SDF, meanwhile, has called the Aleppo clashes “a direct result of provocations by the interim government’s factions, and their attempts to infiltrate using tanks.” SDF forces did not target checkpoints of “Damascus gunmen in the vicinity of Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud,” it added in a statement released on Monday. 

The statement accused Damascus of imposing a “suffocating security and humanitarian siege” on civilian residents, “cutting off aid and medical supplies” and “kidnapping many residents.” 

Nuri Sheikho, the co-chair of the General Council in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, accused the Damascus government and its forces of suppressing “democratic people’s protests” against this week’s road closures and using “artillery and heavy weapons against populated neighborhoods.” 

Still, even during Monday’s clashes, communication with the central government was not cut off, which—alongside public opinion—played an “important role in calming the situation,” he told Syria Direct. 

No military solution

Tuesday’s meeting in Damascus, an expanded meeting of SDF and government negotiating delegations and US mediators, underscored that there is no military solution to the stalled integration process. The meeting did not produce any final statement or new conditions, but rather reaffirmed the ceasefire and the need to press forward towards implementing the March agreement. 

“A military solution is unlikely, so long as the anti-IS international coalition and [its] partnership with the SDF lasts,” Syrian researcher Manhal Barish told Syria Direct. “What happened in Sheikh Maqsoud was checking the pulse: the two parties testing each other,” he said. “In short, when communication over the phone lines breaks down, artillery brings it back.”

Al-Farhat agreed. “The Damascus meeting is important in terms of the attendance of all parties, and [indicates] that matters are moving towards calm, not escalation, at the current moment,” he said. “Damascus is trying to calm the situation.” 

Calm in Syria is part of US President Donald Trump’s stated efforts to ease tensions and “achieve peace in the world, especially in Syria, Gaza and Ukraine,” al-Farhat added. “Syria today is tied to the international scene in general, and the US in particular.” 

It could be a fragile calm. “If the SDF does not implement the March agreement by the end of the year,” as stipulated, “the US will have no direct political and military role in support of the SDF,” al-Farhat said. “This is what the US envoy told the SDF, which reflects Trump’s stance, and it is a warning bell.” 

“Regional countries and international actors do not want a return to the pattern of factions operating outside the state, or that are stronger than the state,” he added. Experiences with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Yemen “prove that this pattern is uncomfortable for the international community, which prefers to deal with centralized states.” 

“Factionalism in Syria is doomed to fail,” al-Farhat said. “Northeastern Syria possessing the oil and wheat does not qualify it to become a state or autonomous region, as the SDF desires.” 

Syria’s northern neighbor Turkey—longtime foe of the SDF and staunch supporter of Damascus—continues to push for the March agreement to be completed. Commenting on the Sheikh Maqsoud events this week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the SDF must keep its word and “complete the process of integrating with the Damascus government,” calling it a “necessary step to achieve stability in the country.” 

Erdogan emphasized that his country’s “patient, wise and generous position” towards the SDF should not be taken as a “point of weakness,” and suggested the SDF is acting with “incitement” from Israel. Turkey “will never allow Syria to slide into a spiral of instability, and we are closely monitoring all developments on the ground and will continue to stand with the Syrian people,” he added. 

“Damascus does not prefer a military solution,” Syrian researcher Muhammad Adeeb told Syria Direct. It is holding this stance despite the presence of Turkey “as a regional state with the ability to bear the military and political cost of any operation against the SDF, which poses a threat to Turkish national security.” 

“Chaos and blood come with any military operation,” Adeeb said. Violence also “increases the opportunity to create a state of hostility with the Kurdish component, which the government views as an indigenous part of Syria.” 

The future of Aleppo’s Kurdish neighborhoods

Interior ministry spokesperson al-Baba said his government wants Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh to have the same conditions as other Aleppo city neighborhoods, to “receive their right to development.” A non-state military presence, “regardless of name,” impacts development and service provision these neighborhoods need, he added. 

“For the foreseeable future, the temporary truce will be in effect, and some terms [of the agreement] will be partially implemented, while some points of friction, inspections and security measures will remain,” al-Farhat projected. He did not expect major military confrontations, “so long as the political effort is serious and there is pressure on the SDF to achieve a solution and integrate.” 

“The Syrian state could grant broad authorities to municipalities in Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud to administer these neighborhoods until a permanent solution matures in Syria,” al-Farhat added. This option would not satisfy what he termed “active” currents of the SDF, which seek “separation, and to achieve a Kurdish canton on a scale similar to Iraqi Kurdistan.” He called this scenario impossible due to “Syria’s different geography, and the lack of a purely Kurdish region.”

Al-farhat accused the SDF of seeking to “shirk the [March] agreement and legitimize autonomy.” This ambition “is bigger than the Kurdish component, which it does not represent, especially given the currents within it that have cross-border separatist projects,” he said.

The fate of Aleppo’s Kurdish neighborhoods is ultimately tied up with that of the broader SDF integration negotiations. A source from the committee in Sheikh Maqsoud responsible for negotiating on residents’ behalf said the neighborhood’s “negotiations are part of the total negotiations carried out by the SDF and Autonomous Administration.” 

“Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh are living a different reality from the rest of the city,” neighborhood council co-chair Sheikho said. “They have a civil administration, and the [autonomous] administration neighborhood councils continue their work.”

“We will make this administrative model a reality imposed on the transitional government that must be accepted and recognized,” Sheikho added. Still, “we prefer dialogue to fighting."

By Walid Al Nofal, Sozdar Muhammad

Syria Direct