Syrian authorities have imposed a curfew in several areas of the city of Aleppo The conflict intensified between the country’s army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The Aleppo Internal Security Command said in a statement on Thursday that a curfew had been imposed “until further notice” in the neighborhoods of Ashrafieh, Sheikh Maqsood, Bani Zaid, al-Syrian, al-Hulloq and al-Midan.
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“The measure aims to ensure the safety of residents and is part of ongoing security procedures to maintain order and avoid any violations that could endanger lives and property,” the command said in a statement shared by Syria’s state news agency SANA.
“Without exception, all movement within the neighborhoods covered by this curfew is strictly prohibited during the enforcement period.”
There are more than 100,000 citizens ran away from their house Since fighting broke out between the Syrian army and the SDF earlier this week in Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsood, the director of the media department in Aleppo told Al Jazeera.
Rana Issa, 43, whose family fled the Ashrafieh neighborhood under sniper fire on Thursday, told the AFP news agency that “many people want to leave” but are afraid of being shot.
“We’ve been through a lot of tough times,” Issa said. “My kids were scared.”
A fight broke out over how to implement it Agreement of March 2025 Integrating the SDF, which controls large swathes of Syria’s north and northeast, into the country’s state institutions.
At least 22 people have been killed and 173 others injured in Aleppo this week, as the Syrian army accused the SDF of targeting civilian areas with artillery and mortar fire.
The Kurdish-led group has denied the allegations, saying this week’s casualties were caused by “indiscriminate” artillery and missile fire by government-aligned groups in Damascus.
Late Thursday, Syria’s interior ministry said government forces had begun deploying to the Ashrafieh area “after the withdrawal of armed groups affiliated with the SDF.”
In a statement shared by SANA, the ministry said, “The units have begun their duties to protect civilians and prevent any violations or signs of disorder by coordinating with army units stationed in the neighborhood.”
Reporting from an Aleppo hospital on Thursday evening, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said heavy gunfire could be heard coming from the facility as medical staff struggled to treat wounded patients.
“The situation is escalating more and more,” Serdar said, adding that Aleppo is experiencing the “most fierce” fighting since the ouster of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
“We are hearing artillery fire, one after another,” he said.
The ‘hard work’ of getting back together
SDF commander Majlum Abdi (also known as Majlum Kobani) said that the violence in Aleppo has undermined talks with the government in Damascus led by President Ahmed al-Shara.
“The deployment of tanks and artillery in the vicinity of Aleppo, the bombing of unarmed civilians and attempts to attack Kurdish neighborhoods during the displacement and negotiation process reduce the chances of an understanding,” Abdi said in a statement.
Armenak Tokmazyan, a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank, told Al Jazeera that the reintegration of Kurdish-led forces into Syrian state institutions “cannot be done by force alone”.
Instead, Tokmajyan said al-Shara needed a multi-pronged approach to bringing armed groups into the fold, including a comprehensive national framework outlining the direction Syria would take after Assad.
“A lot of these armed groups don’t want to lay down their arms because they don’t know what this state will look like,” he said.
“Frankly speaking, the central government has a difficult and very difficult task … to end the fragmentation and with it, end the instability in Syria and create a relatively unified country.”