Syria Declares Ceasefire Amid Clashes  01/09 06:10

   

   ALEPPO, Syria (AP) -- Syria's Defense 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 
neighborhoods 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 neighborhoods 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.

   Associated Press journalists at the scene said a burst of machine-gun fire 
targeted the location the buses had entered from, and an artillery shell landed 
on the road, but calm quickly returned.

   A local council representing the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods 
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 neighborhoods and defend them," it said.

   U.S. envoy to Syria Tom Barrack welcomed the ceasefire 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 neighborhoods and infrastructure, including ambulance crews 
and hospitals.

   Kurdish forces said at least 12 civilians were killed in the 
Kurdish-majority neighborhoods, 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.