Tuesday’s fighting in the Aleppo Governorate has escalated into a bigger clash between Syrian security forces and the Kurdish SDF, with the battle spreading to the governorate capital of Aleppo, and the military announcing a “limited military operation” against the Kurds.
Seven were killed, including six civilians and one Syrian soldier, yesterday in fighting around Deir Hafer, along with as many as 12 civilians and three soldiers wounded. Today, another 11 civilians are reported killed in Aleppo city, and at least 76 more civilians were wounded.
The Syrian military presented the civilian casualties as the result of the SDF shelling residential neighborhoods, and further accused them of planting explosives along the main and secondary roads in the Kurdish neighborhoods.
The SDF offered a conflicting report, saying that the casualties were indeed in the Kurdish neighborhoods, but were the result of security forces firing into the neighborhood and placing the neighborhoods under a total siege. 300 homes were reportedly destroyed in the area.
Thousands of Kurds have fled those neighborhoods, and indeed the military has subsequently declared them “closed military zones.” They have created two humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to leave the neighborhoods, however.
Syrian state media is claiming the SDF is shelling those corridors to try to prevent people from leaving the area. The military also issued a statement declaring all SDF positions within as “legitimate military targets.”
The SDF is meant to integrate into the military, but the repeated conflicts are forever putting that process on hold. Though most of the fights end with a mutual ceasefire, they also expand the distrust between the two sides, and make negotiations all the more difficult.
