On the outskirts of Aleppo’s Ashrafieh district, there is sometimes a strange, uneasy stillness.
At other times, it descends into fatal violence.
Less than two weeks ago, it was the quiet unrest. Men at a joint checkpoint between Syrian security forces and their Kurdish peers, the Asayesh, inspected vehicles that came and went into the district’s narrow streets. Civilians amble beside the armed men.
But on Monday evening, violence broke out between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish militias who control Ashrafieh and the neighbouring Sheikh Maqsoud district, before agreeing to de-escalate.
Several civilians were killed, a witness and a local health official told The National. The civil defence forces confirmed that at least two first responders were injured in a shooting by the Kurdish militias, and the Syrian state news agency Sana accused them of striking a hospital. Videos in Syrian media showed civilians fleeing to a background of loud machinegun fire.
The area of north-western Aleppo is a microcosm of the cracks in security and governance that still run across Syria, more than a year after the regime of President Bashar Al Assad fell.
Kurdish fighters in Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud, home to tens of thousands of people, come under the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The group said civilians and some of its fighters were also injured, and held Damascus responsible for the violence. The Defence Ministry accused the SDF of starting the escalation by "suddenly attacking" Syrian military and security forces", Syria Television reported.
The umbrella of US-backed Kurdish-led fighters also holds large parts of territory in north-eastern Syria, and its integration into centrally controlled authorities is presenting a major challenge for Damascus.
“I’ve been trying to convince them for a year to join us,” a senior Syrian security official told The National – on a visit to the area during a period of calm this month – at a checkpoint outside Ashrafieh.
“I’m constantly telling them when I meet with them, come and join us. I think they are scared about their futures – whether they will have a role in the new government and if so, what it will be.”
The status quo is fragile.
Fatal clashes also broke out in the area in October before a ceasefire was reached. It was the first major urban warfare between the two sides since the new government came to power, and a sign of the brittleness of the ties between them.
Stalled integration
The SDF has held the enclaves in Syria's second-largest city since 2015. The group retained control when a Hayat Tahrir Al Sham-led offensive swept into Aleppo last November before it eventually toppled the Assad regime the next month.
An agreement in April over the two districts' fates saw a prisoner exchange and the withdrawal of hundreds of SDF military fighters to the Kurdish-held territory east of the Euphrates, more than 100km away.
But other SDF-affiliated forces have remained in the area, as full integration of the two districts into state structures, due by year-end, has stalled, the security official said. The district’s local civilian council remains affiliated with north-eastern Syria’s Kurdish-led authorities, and not with the Damascus government.
The joint checkpoints are “to prevent chaos, the entry of explosives and weapons into the areas", Abu Ali, who is in charge of all checkpoints between government and Kurdish-held areas in Aleppo, told The National.
A former HTS battalion commander, he accused the SDF of harbouring “remnants” of the Assad regime in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh.
“We actually don’t know how many but the number is high,” he claimed. “We don’t know why they don’t hand over the remnants of the regime who are hiding inside."
When there is no outbreak of violence, civilians can come and go from Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud.
This month, before Monday's clashes, Mustafa Silou, 45, walked past the checkpoint, clutching a paper cup of espresso in his hand. He moved to a rented home in Ashrafieh six months ago with his mother and two daughters after finding his old house in Aleppo looted and damaged.
Making progress
“Inside we have water and food,” Mr Silou told The National. “We feel safe and we can come and go. Things are OK because our young men are here,” he added, pointing to the general security troops on the checkpoint.
He noted, however, that electricity supplies operated for only six hours a day, and officials inside the enclave have reported bread and fuel shortages. The Syrian security officials denied there was a siege of the area.
The integration of Kurdish forces in Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud, on a larger scale, weighs on the unification of the SDF with Damascus, including its tens of thousands of fighters east of the Euphrates. Despite an agreement reached this year, the process has stalled over the extent to which SDF units would be allowed to remain as they are or be dissolved into other Syrian army and security force brigades.
The US has been mediating between the two sides, and neighbouring Turkey has been pushing for the deal’s integration. It regards the SDF, especially its Kurdish backbone, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist militant group listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and other countries.
"Unfortunately, they [SDF] do not have the intention to make much progress," Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on a visit to the Syrian capital on Monday.
Abu Ali said he did not want the Kurdish forces inside the two districts to leave, necessarily, but instead, “to work with us".
He accused their leadership of stalling “to get more gains” in negotiations with the central government over integration.
The senior security official said that the SDF had shared enemies in the Assad regime and ISIS. “Now both of those are gone. So the idea now is to build a united state that contains Kurds.”
Additional reporting by Ahmad Mohammad
