Syrian Army Pushes Kurdish Forces Back From Area’s East Of Aleppo City.

Aleppo, Syria; January 2026: Syria’s army have pushed back Kurdish forces today – 13th January 2026 from an area they control east of Aleppo after dislodging fighters from two neighbourhoods in the city in deadly clashes last week. Furthermore, State television published an army statement with a map declaring a large area a “closed military zone” and said “all armed groups in this area must withdraw to east of the Euphrates River”.

The area begins near Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Aleppo city and extends to the Euphrates further east, as well as towards the south. On Monday – 12th January, Syria had accused the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces of sending reinforcements to Deir Hafer and said it sent its own personnel there in response. But the SDF denied any build-up of its forces in the region.

On the weekend, Syria’s government took full control of Aleppo city after taking over its Kurdish neighbourhoods and evacuating fighters there to Kurdish-controlled areas in the country’s northeast following days of clashes. The violence sparked last Tuesday, 06th January, after negotiations stalled on integrating the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and forces into the country’s new government. The SDF controls swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which they captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Islamic State group.

Residents of the Ashrafiyeh neighbourhood, the first of two areas to fall to the Syrian army, began returning to their homes to inspect the damage, finding shrapnel and broken glass littering the streets.

A Syrian security official told media personnel’s that 419 Kurdish fighters, including 59 wounded and an unspecified number of dead, were transferred from the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood, the second area to come under army control to the Kurdish-controlled zone in the northeast.

The arriving fighters were met with tears and vows of vengeance from hundreds of people who gathered to greet them in the north eastern Kurdish city of Qamishli, according to AFP correspondents at the scene. “We will avenge Sheikh Maqsud, we will avenge our fighters, we will avenge our martyrs” the residents shouted.

A correspondent saw crossed-out images of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and US envoy Tom Barrack, as people chanted against Sharaa. Kurdish leader Mazlum Abdi said on X that the combatants were evacuated “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo”.

The Syrian official said that 300 other Kurds, including fighters and members of the domestic security forces, had been arrested. Britain-based the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told media reporters that 300 “young Kurds” had been arrested, stating that they were “civilians, not fighters”.

On Sunday in Ashrafiyeh, media reporters witnessed people carrying bags and blankets return to their homes after being searched by security forces. “When we returned, we found holes in the walls and our homes had been looted. Now that things have calmed down, we’re back to repair the walls and restore the water and electricity”, the residents said.

Some had hoped calm would prevail between the government in Damascus and the Kurdish fighters.

“We didn’t want things to get this bad. I wish the Kurdish leadership had responded to the Syrian state. We’ve had enough bloodshed”, they said, those who stayed in the Ashrafieh neighbourhood.

“There’s no Arab, no Kurd, we’re all Syrians”.

Sheikh Maqsud, however, remained off limits on Sunday, with residents barred from returning, an interior ministry source told media reporters. As noticed in the area – burnt armoured vehicles, cars loaded with ammunition, and many landmines that authorities took during their combing operation.

Syrian authorities said on Sunday that the toll from the fighting had reached “24 dead and 129 wounded since last Tuesday”, while the Observatory reported 45 civilians and 60 soldiers and fighters were killed from both sides. The Observatory reported “field executions” and the burning of fighters’ bodies in Sheikh Maqsud by government forces, along with other “violations”.

US envoy Tom Barrack on Saturday had met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and afterwards issued a call for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with an integration agreement sealed last year. Abdi in his statement called on “the mediators to abide by their promises to stop the violations”.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Abdi heads, control swathes of the country’s oil-rich north and northeast, much of which they captured during Syria’s civil war and the fight against the Islamic State group.

Neighbouring Turkey, a close ally of Syria’s new leaders, views the SDF’s main component as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which agreed last year to end its four-decade armed struggle against Ankara. Turkey has launched successive offensives to push Kurdish forces from the frontier.

The March integration agreement between Damascus and the Kurds was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralized rule, stymied progress. The Aleppo fighting recalled a chapter in Syria’s civil war when fierce fighting pitted the city’s rebel-held east against the west, then controlled by the forces of ousted leader Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s forces seized control of the entire city in December 2016, forcing the opposition and their families to evacuate to what was then the rebel stronghold of Idlib in the northwest.

Team Maverick.