Damascus declares truce with Syria’s Kurdish forces after Aleppo skirmishes
US military helicopters delivered Syrian Kurdish commander Mazlum Kobane to Damascus in push to halt a burst of fighting overnight in Aleppo that risked unravelling the fragile rapprochement between Syria's two largest post-Assad forces.
WASHINGTON — US military officials transported the top commander of Syria's Kurdish-led alliance to Damascus on Tuesday in a bid to halt an outbreak of fighting around two Kurdish-majority neighborhoods in Aleppo overnight that threatened to unravel the country's fragile unity.
The defense minister in Syria’s interim government, Murhaf Abu Qusra, declared an “immediate” truce on all fronts in the country’s north and northeast after meeting with the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazlum Kobane, in the capital on Monday.
The meeting brought the SDF commander together with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and was arranged and attended by US envoy Tom Barrack and the top commander overseeing all American forces in the Middle East, US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, Al-Monitor can confirm.
The declaration by Sharaa's government appeared to mark an end to intense firefights around Ashrafiyyeh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhoods of Aleppo after government-aligned fighters deployed to those areas on Monday night. The skirmishes marked some of the most intense violence between the SDF and forces aligned with Syria's interim central government since the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024.
