Syrian forces expel Kurdish fighters as US strikes Islamic State targets

Syrian Government forces have detained 300 Kurds and evacuated more than 400 Kurdish fighters after clashes in Aleppo, the interior ministry has said, as US and allied forces carried out separate “large-scale” strikes against Islamic State targets.An interior ministry official told Agence France-Presse that about 360 Kurdish fighters and 60 wounded had been bussed to the Kurds’ de facto autonomous zone in the north-east from the Sheikh Maqsoud district, the last area of Aleppo to fall to the army.A further 300 Kurds, including members of the Kurdish internal security forces, were detained, the official said on Sunday. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting.Kurdish forces had controlled several pockets of Syria’s second city and operate a de facto autonomous administration across large swathes of the north and north-east, much of it captured during the country’s bloody 14-year civil war.The Aleppo clashes, some of the most intense since the regime of the longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December 2024, erupted on Tuesday after negotiations to integrate the Kurds into the country’s new government stalled.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 has faced resistance from Kurdish forces wary of his Islamist-led government.It has also raised fears of a regional escalation, with neighbouring Turkey, a close ally of Syria’s new Islamist authorities, saying it was ready to intervene. Israel has sided with the Kurdish forces.At least 21 civilians have been killed, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people had fled their homes. Both sides have blamed the other for initiating the clashes.US and allied forces said they had carried out “large-scale” strikes against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria on Saturday, in the latest response to an attack last month that left three Americans dead.Washington said a lone gunman from the militant group carried out the 13 December attack in Palmyra, which killed two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter. The area is home to Unesco-listed ancient ruins and was once controlled by jihadist fighters.“The strikes today targeted Isis throughout Syria” and were part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, which was launched “in direct response to the deadly Isis attack on US and Syrian forces in Palmyra”, US Central Command said in a statement.The Jordanian army said it had participated in the strikes in coordination “with partners within the framework of the international coalition … to neutralise the capabilities of terrorist groups and prevent them from reorganising”.The Palmyra attack was the first such incident since the fall of the Assad regime. The US personnel targeted were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the international effort to combat IS, which seized swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory in 2014.The jihadist group was ultimately defeated by local ground forces backed by international airstrikes and other support, but IS still has a presence in Syria, particularly in the country’s huge desert.Syria’s military, which had earlier announced its seizure of Aleppo’s other Kurdish-held neighbourhood, Ashrafiyeh, confirmed early on Sunday that it had “finished operations” in the Sheikh Maqsoud district.State-run Ekhbariya TV said the last Kurdish-led SDF fighters had left Aleppo on Sunday after the ceasefire deal allowed the evacuations. The official SANA news agency said buses “carrying the last batch of SDF members” were heading north-east.The SDF said in a statement it had “reached an understanding that led to a ceasefire and secured the evacuation of the martyrs, the wounded, the trapped civilians and the fighters from Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods”.The SDF statement said the ceasefire had been reached “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo”. Both the US and EU had called for a return to political dialogue.The US envoy Tom Barrack said on Saturday he had met al-Sharaa in Damascus and urged all parties to “exercise maximum restraint, immediately cease hostilities, and return to dialogue”. He said the US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s team was ready to mediate.AFP and Reuters contributed to this report