The Syrian army warned Kurdish militias on Wednesday that it would strike “military targets” in Aleppo, as deadly exchanges continued for a third day in the latest round of urban warfare in the country’s second-largest city.
Public offices and schools were closed and flights suspended in the northern city on Wednesday, as government forces and Kurdish militias under the Syrian Democratic Forces continued to clash, said residents and government officials.
“We declare that all SDF military positions within the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods are legitimate military targets for the Syrian Arab Army, following the group's significant escalation towards Aleppo's neighbourhoods and its perpetration of numerous massacres against civilians,” the Syrian army’s operations command said in a statement carried by state news agency Sana.
It warned civilians in the two areas under the control of the militias to “immediately distance themselves from SDF positions” and offered two “humanitarian corridors” until 3pm local time.
The SDF later issued a statement warning that the government's actions “will lead to serious repercussions that will not be limited to Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh or to the city of Aleppo alone, but will risk plunging all of Syria back into an open battlefield”.
“We call on the guarantor states, as well as the responsible authorities within the Syrian government that claim concern for national unity, to assume their immediate responsibilities and work to promptly halt the siege, shelling, and military assault targeting innocent civilians,” added the SDF statement.
Syria's government, in a statement carried by Sana, said it “rejects the inflammatory and alarmist rhetoric that could fuel tensions and destabilise the situation”.
At least four civilians were killed and 11 wounded, said Munir Al Mohammed, head of the Aleppo Directorate of Health media office.
He added that the Aleppo Internal Medicine Hospital was “directly” and “deliberately” targeted by SDF forces operating “outside the law,” including through “snipers”.
The patients, including three in intensive care and six in the wards and departments, he added, have been evacuated to Al Razi Hospital, another facility in the area, along with the doctors who were on duty.
All hospitals in Aleppo remain “on full alert,” he said.
The SDF said at least seven civilians had been killed and 52 injured, according to non-final figures in areas of Aleppo under its control and blamed government forces for “indiscriminate artillery and missile shelling”, including “the use of drones … direct sniper fire and heavy weapon fire”.
It added that the two neighbourhoods remain “under full siege”, blocking “the entry of food, medical supplies, and essential goods”.
The SDF added that 80 tanks and heavy military vehicles have reportedly been deployed around the two neighbourhoods, which it described as a concerning warning regarding “a potential large-scale escalation”.
Ilham Ahmed, co-chairman of foreign affairs for the SDF's political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council said the army's announcement was a “declaration of war” on the group and Kurds.
The violence prompted thousands of people to flee to makeshift shelters set up in local mosques. The National received video footage from an Aleppo resident showing civilians with bin liners of belongings walking through the city after leaving their homes.
“The situation is really difficult in Aleppo today, there are continuing clashes, and a large operation to evacuate civilians is taking place, as there are many in the area,” a civil defence official in the area told The National. “The civil defence alone has evacuated 400 people, and overall, up till now, 3,000 people have left Ashrafieh, Sheikh Maqsoud and the surrounding areas.”
These clashes are the third round of violence between the SDF and government forces in Aleppo since October, highlighting the instability caused by continued cracks in Syria’s military and security architecture.
The SDF has held the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts − home to tens of thousands of people − since 2015. The group retained control when a Hayat Tahrir Al Sham-led offensive swept into Aleppo in November 2024, before the group toppled the Assad regime the next month.
An agreement last April over the fate of the districts saw a prisoner exchange and the withdrawal of hundreds of SDF fighters to the resource-rich 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 stalled. The district’s local civilian council remains affiliated with north-eastern Syria’s Kurdish-led authorities, and not with the Damascus government.
A deadline for the SDF’s overall integration into forces controlled from Damascus at the end of 2025, as laid out in a separate agreement last March, passed without a resolution, creating the conditions for the current instability.
With both sides constantly blaming each other, it is hard to determine who is responsible for sparking the Aleppo clashes each time they occur, according to Alexander McKeever, an Amman-based analyst focusing on northern Syria.
“Starting last round in late December, the government has increasingly used heavy weaponry against the [Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh] enclave, perhaps in an attempt to force a final settlement,” Mr McKeever told The National.
“The only thing that can bring an end to these increasingly deadly clashes is the two sides actually agreeing on how to implement the March 10 document.”
