Syria’s military says its forces have taken management of dozens of cities within the east of Aleppo governorate after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) withdrew from the areas.
After driving out Kurdish forces from Aleppo metropolis final week following lethal clashes, Syria’s military deployed reinforcements close to Deir Hafer and different cities, and informed the SDF to evacuate the realm between the city and the Euphrates river, about 30km (18 miles) additional east, amid an influence wrestle over the disarmament of the Kurdish-led group.
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In statements to state tv, Syria’s military mentioned it had taken management of “34 villages and cities” east of Aleppo because it began getting into the areas on Saturday morning, together with the important thing cities of Deir Hafer and Maskana, in addition to a army airport.
Nonetheless, it accused the SDF of violating the settlement and concentrating on a military patrol close to Maskana, “killing two troopers”.
It additionally mentioned it had secured the exit of “greater than 200 SDF organisation fighters and their weapons”.
The SDF, in the meantime, accused Damascus of violating the settlement, saying the military entered the cities of Deir Hafer and Maskana “earlier than our fighters had totally withdrawn, making a extremely harmful state of affairs”, reporting clashes.
Celebrations
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Deir Hafer, mentioned civilians are on their means again to the city, attempting to enter it.
“Now we have seen households travelling within the backs of pick-up vans, braving chilly, wet climate. They’re arriving at mud partitions arrange by the SDF as roadblocks and checkpoints as a part of their positions,” he mentioned,
“We at the moment are seeing bulldozers shifting in to clear the realm, because the Syrian army makes an attempt to ascertain management and perform checks on these returning.”
Basravi additionally mentioned individuals have been elated at the truth that the town was beneath the management of the Syrian army. “Issues listed here are celebratory,” he mentioned.
Syria’s authorities is in search of to increase its authority throughout the nation following the removing of longtime chief Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
The SDF controls swaths of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, a lot of which it captured in the course of the nation’s civil warfare and the struggle towards the ISIL (ISIS) group over the previous decade – a warfare the SDF fought as the principle regional ally of america.
Progress on implementing a March deal to combine the political and armed our bodies of the Kurdish de facto autonomous administration and forces into the state has stalled amid variations between the 2 sides, together with the Kurds’ demand for decentralised rule.
On Friday night, the Syrian military struck what it mentioned have been Kurdish positions in Deir Hafer. The SDF introduced in the course of the assault that the city was “at present beneath heavy artillery bombardment”.
Kurdish chief Mazloum Abdi, also referred to as Mazloum Kobani, dedicated to withdrawing the SDF on Saturday morning “in direction of redeployment in areas east of the Euphrates”, based mostly on “calls from pleasant international locations and mediators”.
The Syrian defence ministry welcomed Abdi’s announcement, saying its troops would deploy after the SDF withdrew.
The Syrian military had urged civilians to flee Deir Hafer in current days, with at the least 4,000 individuals leaving, in accordance with Syrian authorities.
Thousands and thousands of Kurds reside throughout Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkiye, with about one to 1.5 million estimated to reside in northeastern Syria, managed by the SDF.
Kurdish rights recognised
The most recent advance of the Syrian military got here a day after President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree, declaring Kurdish a “nationwide language” and granting the minority official recognition in an obvious goodwill gesture, although the Kurds mentioned it fell wanting their aspirations.
Al-Sharaa’s announcement was the primary formal recognition of Kurdish rights since Syria’s independence in 1946.
The decree acknowledged that Kurds are “a necessary and integral half” of Syria, the place they’ve suffered a long time of marginalisation and oppression beneath former rulers.
It made Kurdish a “nationwide language” that may be taught in public faculties in areas the place the group is closely current, and granted nationality to all Kurds, 20 p.c of whom had been stripped of it beneath a controversial 1962 census.
The Kurdish administration in Syria’s north and northeast mentioned the decree was “a primary step, nonetheless, it doesn’t fulfill the aspirations and hopes of the Syrian individuals”.
“Rights will not be protected by short-term decrees, however … by way of everlasting constitutions that specific the desire of the individuals and all elements” of society, it mentioned in a press release.
