A member of the Syrian army stands on a pick-up truck in the Ashrafieh neighbourhood, after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters left the Syrian city of Aleppo on January 11, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
The Syrian army on Tuesday (January 13, 2026) declared an area east of the northern city of Aleppo a “closed military zone,” potentially signalling another escalation between government forces and fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Several days of clashes in the city of Aleppo last week, that displaced tens of thousands of people, came to an end over the weekend with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters from the contested neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud.
Since then, Syrian officials have accused the SDF of building up its forces near the towns of Maskana and Deir Hafer, about 60 km (37 mi) east of Aleppo city, something the SDF denied.
In a statement, the SDF said government forces have started shelling Deir Hafer, but said there are no reported casualties.
Damascus has yet to comment.
Eastern Aleppo province has been a tense frontline, dividing areas under the Syrian government and the large swaths of northeastern Syria under the SDF.
SANA, the state news agency, reported that the army had declared the area a closed military zone because of “continued mobilization” by the SDF “and because it serves as a launching point for Iranian suicide drones that have targeted the city of Aleppo.”
A drone hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday (January 10, 2026) shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference on the developments in the city. The SDF denied being behind the attack.
The army’s statement on Tuesday (January 13, 2026) said armed groups should withdraw to the area east of the Euphrates River.
The tensions come amid an impasse in political negotiations between the central state and the SDF.
The leadership in Damascus, under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, signed a deal in March 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, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-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 Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organisation because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. 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.
Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — had been set to air an interview with al-Sharaa on Monday (January 12, 2026) but later announced it had been postponed for “technical” reasons, without giving a new date for broadcast.
Published – January 13, 2026 09:02 pm IST
