Deadly clashes in Syria’s Aleppo deepen rift between govt, Kurdish forces

ALEPPO: Fierce fighting in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish fighters killed at least four people on Wednesday and drove thousands of civilians from their homes, with Washington reported to be mediating a de-escalation.

The violence, and statements trading blame over who started it, signaled that a stalemate between Damascus and Kurdish authorities that have resisted integrating into the central government was deepening and growing deadlier. Clashes broke out on Tuesday, when at least six people were killed, including two women and a child, in an exchange of shelling between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said. Aleppo’s health directorate said a further four people were killed and more than two dozen wounded.

By evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.

The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.

The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighbourhoods, ferrying them out on city buses. A source from the government’s civil defence rescue force said an estimated 10,000 people had fled.

“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defence force in Aleppo.