Syria announces ceasefire after days of clashes with Kurdish fighters in Aleppo

Members of Syrian government forces deploy on the streets as they take over the Achrafieh neighbourhood from Kurdish fighters during ongoing clashes that erupted Tuesday in a contested area of the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

ALEPPO, Syria — Syria’s Defence Ministry announced a ceasefire on Friday after three days of clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo that displaced tens of thousands of people.

There was no immediate public response from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, while a local Kurdish council rejected calls for the evacuation of fighters.

The ministry statement said the ceasefire was effective at 3 a.m. in the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid and gave armed groups six hours to leave the area.

It said departing militants would be allowed to carry their “personal light weapons” and would be provided with an escort to the country’s northeast, which is controlled by the SDF.

Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Gharib toured the contested neighbourhoods with an escort of security forces overnight.

However, in the hours after the announcement, no fighters departed. Buses lined up to evacuate militants remained empty hours after the deadline.

A local council representing the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighbourhoods issued a statement saying, “We will not accept the pressures imposed on us and the calls for surrender.”

“We do not trust the Damascus government to entrust our security to us, and we have decided to remain in our neighbourhoods and defend them,” it said.

U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack welcomed the announcement in a statement on X and extended “profound gratitude to all parties — the Syrian government, the Syrian Democratic Forces, local authorities, and community leaders — for the restraint and goodwill that made this vital pause possible.”

Barrack said the U.S. was working with the parties to extend the ceasefire beyond the six-hour deadline.

Some 142,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, which broke out Tuesday with exchanges of shelling and drone strikes.

Each side has accused the other of starting the violence and of deliberately targeting civilian neighbourhoods and infrastructure, including ambulance crews and hospitals.

Kurdish forces said at least 12 civilians were killed in the Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods, while government officials reported at least nine civilians were killed in the surrounding government-controlled areas in the fighting.

Dozens more on both sides have been wounded. It was not clear how many fighters were killed on each side.

The clashes come amid an impasse in political negotiations between the central state and the SDF.

The leadership in Damascus under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa had signed a deal in March last year with the SDF, which controls much of the northeast, for it to merge with the Syrian army by the end of 2025. There have been disagreements on how it would happen.

Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkey-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.

The SDF has for years been the main U.S. partner in Syria in fighting against the Islamic State group, but Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkey. A peace process is now underway.

Despite the long-running U.S. support for the SDF, the Trump administration in the U.S. has also developed close ties with al-Sharaa’s government and has pushed the Kurds to implement the March deal.

Omar Albam, The Associated Press