The Syrian army and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have reportedly called a truce in two areas of Aleppo city after a member of the Syrian security forces was killed in an SDF attack on a checkpoint in the city, according to news media.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Tuesday that three members of Syria’s Internal Security Forces and several civilians were also injured in the SDF attacks on checkpoints located in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Al-Ashrafieh neighbourhoods in the northern city of Aleppo.
Fighters fired mortar shells and heavy machine guns in the clashes while SDF snipers had taken up positions on rooftops in the neighbourhoods, SANA reported, citing a local security source.
SANA said the clashes erupted after the Syrian Defence Ministry said on Sunday that recent manoeuvres by its forces along several front lines with the Kurdish-led SDF in the northeast of the country were not new operations but part of a planned redeployment.
SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami denied that the group’s personnel had targeted checkpoints in Aleppo, saying it had no forces in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Al-Ashrafieh neighbourhoods.
Farhad also accused Syrian government factions of attempting to enter Kurdish-held districts with tanks and called for the lifting of what he described as a government siege in the city, warning that the Syrian military’s actions would worsens the plight of local residents.
Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Gharib called on residents to stay home early on Tuesday and away from the areas where the clashes had broken out in the city.
“We are working with the relevant parties to calm the situation and stop the clashes,” the governor said, adding that the Syrian military had “no intention of any military escalation”, according to SANA.
The Reuters news agency, citing SANA, said that a “ceasefire deal” had been reached between in the two districts.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, said that communications in the districts had been cut and they were now surrounded by Syrian army reinforcements.
Recent clashes between the SDF and the Syrian army have cast a shadow over a landmark deal signed in March with Syria’s new government to integrate the SDF into state institutions.
The deal, brokered under US auspices after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December, seeks to integrate Kurdish-led forces into Syria’s institutions and hand key assets, including border crossings, an airport, and oil-and-gas fields, to Damascus by the end of the year.
But progress on the plan has stalled amid mutual recriminations.
Both Damascus and the SDF have accused each other of provocations that have increased tensions.
Washington has also pressed the Kurds to accelerate negotiations to integrate with Syrian government-led institutions under terms acceptable to both sides while Turkiye has accused the SDF of stalling on the plan and warning of military action if it does not integrate with Damascus.
Syria on Monday published the results of its first parliamentary election since the al-Assad was toppled toppled, a landmark moment in the country’s fragile transition after nearly 14 years of war.
Sunday’s vote saw around 6,000 members of regional electoral colleges choose candidates from preapproved lists, part of a process to produce nearly two-thirds of the new 210-seat body.
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa will later select the remaining third.
