Elections bring no peace to Aleppo, while Kurds and government militias clash
In northern Syria, the first elections since the fall of Assad were followed by renewed violence. Kurdish authorities say that government troops have imposed a siege, while attacks on checkpoints were reported in Damascus. A witness in Aleppo spoke to AsiaNews about a “terrible night” with people “holed up in their homes.” The understanding for the control of Rojava is at an impasse, while voting was not held in Kurdish areas and Suwayda governorate.
Aleppo (AsiaNews) – Syria’s first elections since the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad ended in violence last night in Aleppo, in the north of the country. Armed clashes broke out between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)[*] and security forces loyal to the government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that three security personnel and several civilians were wounded after the SDF attacked checkpoints in the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafieh.
An SDF spokesman, Farhad Shami, denied that the SDF targeted checkpoints, explaining instead that violence broke out after government-affiliated militias attempted to enter Kurdish-administered areas with tanks.
“What is happening in Aleppo is the direct result of provocations by factions linked to the interim government and their attempts to move in with tanks,” reads the official statement in Arabic from the administration in Rojava, in Kurdish-controlled northeast of Syria.
“Some media outlets are reporting false allegations that the Syrian Democratic Forces targeted checkpoints belonging to militants linked to the government in the Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods of Aleppo city,” the statement goes on to read.
“We categorically affirm that these allegations are absolutely untrue, as our forces have not had a presence in the region since their withdrawal under the April 1 understanding,” it adds.
The latter is a reference to an agreement between Kurdish forces and the Syrian government according to which SDF-controlled border crossings, an airport, and Rojava's oil and gas fields would come under the control of the central government.
However, implementation of the agreement has encountered increasing difficulties in recent months, despite pressure from the United States and Turkey for a rapid resolution to the issue.
Yesterday's clashes, the Kurds note, turned into a siege of the city of Aleppo.
“What is happening in the neighbourhoods of Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud is the result of a series of repeated attacks carried out by the factions of the Damascus government against the civilian population, where they imposed a suffocating security and humanitarian siege, cut off relief and medical supplies, kidnapped many residents, continued the daily provocation of the residents at checkpoints and in the vicinity of the neighbourhoods, and recently raised flags near the neighbourhoods and imposed a siege.”
“It was a terrible night,” said Jean-François Thiry, project manager for the NGO ATS Pro Terra Sancta in northern Syria, speaking to AsiaNews. “There were artillery explosions from 10 pm to 1 am. We spent the night sitting in the corridor to protect ourselves from possible bullets and shrapnel," the aid worker added. "This morning everything is quiet. The city is under lockdown, people are holed up in their homes, and the governor granted a day off after a truce was reached, but the problem is not resolved."
Although anti-Assad militias, led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, took over the country with the capture of Damascus on 8 December 2024, Rojava remains under the control of a separate Kurdish administration.
The SDF and the Sharaa administration (backed by Turkey, which has persecuted Kurds for years) have been unable to reach a compromise despite several rounds of talks.
The government is calling for the integration of Kurdish armed forces into the Syrian army, while the Rojava administration is demanding some form of autonomy to protect its population, an issue on which Sharaa has been categorical from the outset, emphasising in a draft constitution that the government will not allow any form of decentralisation.
The latest violence comes on top of the massacres perpetrated against Alawis in March, during which nearly 1,500 people were killed, and the clashes that erupted in July involving Druze militias in the southern Syrian province of Suwayda, which resulted in thousands more deaths.
While the government had announced an agreement with various Druze tribes in the southern areas bordering Israel, the situation has not yet been restored to normal.
This is why the recent election was not held in either Suwayda or Rojava.
The election held in the rest of the country cannot be said to have been democratic, i.e. free and fair for the entire population. Some 6,000 people, chosen to form local electoral colleges, selected candidates from lists pre-approved by the government, while a third of the parliamentary members (70) will be appointed directly by Sharaa.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, analysts and many ordinary Syrians expressed concern about the extremely centralised management of the entire process, while the suspension of voting in areas outside of government control, which left 21 seats vacant, was criticised.
The first results were published yesterday. The electoral committee reported that 119 out of 140 lawmakers had been selected, but did not say how many votes each received.
According to available information, most elected MPs are Sunni men, while those representing minorities (Alawites, Kurds, and Christians, to name the main groups) received no more than 10 seats in total, a serious underrepresentation compared to the country’s makeup.
In Damascus government authorities explained that they opted for an indirect electoral system rather than universal suffrage due to the lack of reliable demographic data following the war; according to estimates by various humanitarian groups, at least 600,000 people died in 14 years of conflict, while millions of Syrians fled abroad with many still unsure whether to return, waiting hopefully for the war to be truly over and the situation stabilised.
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[*] The SDF, a predominantly Kurdish militia, fought the Islamic State during the civil war with the support of the United States.
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