Since the fall of the Assad regime, Aleppo has hosted a growing and problematic anomaly: Kurdish armed groups entrenched in Sheikh Maqsoud, while also extending control over Ashrafieh and Bani Zayd following the regime’s collapse.
These factions are not in reality subordinate to the Syrian Democratic Forces commander Mazloum Abdi, but instead answer to the hardline Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
For the first months following Assad’s fall, these groups repeatedly used sniper fire and indirect attacks against government-controlled neighborhoods in Aleppo, causing dozens of civilian deaths. Damascus initially showed restraint and negotiated a temporary security arrangement, leading to a brief lull.
Yet a clear pattern emerged afterward: each time negotiations between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) made progress, Sheikh Maqsoud factions escalated violence by opening fire on Aleppo’s neighborhoods—seemingly to sabotage political de-escalation.
A Military Reality Check
This time went different. When Kurdish militias opened fire again at civilian districts, Damascus reaction was swift: The effective confrontation lasted less than 24 hours, within a four-day overall operation, despite taking place in predominantly Kurdish areas—covering a surface area comparable to that of Raqqa in north-eastern Syria—that had been under Kurdish control for over a decade.
The contrast is striking. Rebel-held suburbs around Damascus in 2017–2018 endured months-long sieges under equally desperate conditions. This episode instead revealed a clear military superiority of Syrian government forces, supposedly facing elite Kurdish fighters.
The explanation is structural. Syrian units are battle-hardened after more than thirteen years of war fought largely without weapon superiority, and often under constant aerial bombardment. Kurdish forces, by contrast, were conditioned to fight with systematic Western air support—a factor entirely absent in Aleppo.
