Last Kurdish fighters leave Syria's Aleppo city after days of clashes

By Khalil Ashawi, Mahmoud Hasano and Orhan Qereman

ALEPPO, Syria Jan 10 (Reuters) - The last Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters left the Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday, state-run Ekhbariya TV said, following a ceasefire deal that allowed evacuations after days of deadly clashes.

The departure marks the removal of Kurdish forces from pockets ​of Aleppo they have held since Syria’s war began in 2011, while Kurdish forces continue to run a semi-autonomous zone across large parts of northeastern Syria.

SDF commander Mazloum ‌Abdi said in a post on X the group had reached an understanding, through international mediation, on a ceasefire and the safe evacuation of civilians and fighters from Aleppo’s Ashrafiyah and Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhoods to northern and eastern Syria.

The ‌violence in Aleppo has deepened one of the main faultlines in Syria, where President Ahmed al-Sharaa's promise to unify the country under one leadership after 14 years of war has faced resistance from Kurdish forces wary of his Islamist-led government.

The United States and other world powers welcomed a ceasefire earlier in the week, but Kurdish forces refused to leave the last stronghold of Sheikh Maksoud under the deal. Syria's army said it would conduct a ground operation to clear them and combed through the neighbourhood on Saturday.

Reuters reporters then saw dozens of men, women and children streaming out of the ⁠neighbourhood on foot. Syrian troops put them onto buses and said ‌they would be taken to displacement shelters. More than 140,000 people have already been displaced by the fighting this week.

The Reuters reporters later saw security forces put more than 100 men in civilian clothes on buses.

Syrian security officials at the scene identified them as members of the Kurdish internal ‍security forces, known as the Asayish, and said they had surrendered. The Asayish later denied any of those who left Aleppo were fighters, saying they were all civilians that had been forcibly displaced.

ACCUSATIONS OVER VIOLATIONS

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said on Saturday he had met Sharaa in Damascus, and urged all parties to "exercise maximum restraint, immediately cease hostilities, and return to dialogue." He said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's team ​was ready to mediate.

Barrack earlier said a consolidated ceasefire would see the "peaceful withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Aleppo," referring to the main Kurdish force.

Three Syrian security sources told ‌Reuters a batch of Kurdish fighters including some commanders and their families were secretly ferried out of Aleppo overnight Friday into Saturday to the country's northeast.

Ilham Ahmad, who heads the Kurdish administration's foreign relations department, had overnight Friday into Saturday welcomed a deal to “safely redeploy fighters from Sheikh Maksoud” to eastern Syria.

Turkish security sources hinted at a possible divide within Kurdish factions, saying Ankara had reached out to some senior Kurdish officials and noted a willingness to compromise, naming Ahmad and Abdi specifically. But the Turkish sources said other fighters opted to hold out and fight.

Kurdish fighters who had earlier been holed up in a hospital in Aleppo’s Sheikh Maksoud district withdrew on Sunday under the evacuation agreement, leaving their weapons behind, Syrian state-run Ekhbariya TV reported.

The SDF ⁠had earlier said it waged street battles against government forces, accusing them of indiscriminately bombing civilian infrastructure, including ​the hospital, where civilians were taking cover.

They said the attacks were backed by Turkish drones. A Turkish security source ​denied they were used, and said the operation was "largely completed, there was no need" for Turkish backing.

The Syrian army has denied conducting indiscriminate attacks and accused the ٍSDF of attacking Aleppo's town hall with a drone. The SDF denied the claim.

The SDF have resisted efforts to integrate into Syria's new government, made ‍up of former rebels who ousted longtime leader ⁠Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. With negotiations on their merging stalled, fighting erupted in Aleppo on Tuesday, killing at least nine civilians.

The clashes are the latest bout of sectarian violence in Syria. In 2025, more than 1,000 people from the Alawite minority were killed by government-linked forces and hundreds from the Druze minority were killed in the ⁠southern province of Sweida, including in execution-style killings.

The fighting in Aleppo has closed a key highway to Turkey and factories in its industrial zone. Syria's General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Saturday Aleppo's international airport would remain ‌closed until further notice.

(Reporting by Khalil Ashawi, Mahmoud Hasano and Karam al-Masri in Aleppo, Orhan Qereman in Qamishli; additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and ‌Yomna Ehab in Cairo Writing by Maya Gebeily. Editing by Barbara Lewis,Mark Potter and Alistair Bell)