Last SDF fighters leave Syria’s Aleppo after days of deadly clashes

The last fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have left the city of Aleppo, according to officials, following a ceasefire deal that allowed evacuations after days of deadly clashes in Syria’s second-largest city.

Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Gharib told Al Jazeera early on Sunday that Aleppo has become “empty of SDF fighters” after government forces coordinated their withdrawal on buses out of the city overnight.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) said the group had reached an understanding through international ⁠mediation on a ceasefire and the safe evacuation of civilians and fighters.

“We have reached an understanding that leads to a ceasefire and securing the evacuation of the dead, the wounded, the stranded civilians and the fighters from the Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” Abdi said in a post on X.

“We call on the mediators to adhere to their promises to stop the violations and work towards a safe return for the displaced to their homes,” he added.

The development came after the Syrian army took over the Kurdish-majority neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud following days of clashes that broke out when talks to integrate the SDF into the national army collapsed.

At least 30 people were killed in the clashes, while more than 150,000 were displaced.

Bernard Smith, reporting from Aleppo for Al Jazeera, said that the remaining SDF fighters in the city were taken by bus to Raqqa, which he added was the “main city in northeastern Syria that is under SDF control.”

“They haven’t commented about what’s happening, although the silence says something, because until yesterday night, they were repeatedly saying they were staying to fight on,” he said.

Smith said the Syrian government forces were carrying out searches in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood for prisoners taken during the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime just over a year ago.

“These are civilian activists and opposition fighters. At the time, they were arrested at SDF checkpoints around Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh and taken into custody,” Smith added.

Al Jazeera’s Ayman Oghanna, reporting from Damascus, said calm has returned to Aleppo. Al-Gharib, the Aleppo Governor, said security conditions in the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh were steadily improving.

Mohammad Dala, a resident of the Kurdish-majority neighbourhood of Assad al-Din in the capital, Damascus told Al Jazeera he hoped “there will be national unity and we get rid of war and blood.”

“I hope the government controls all the country, and I hope the USA will help us with that,” he added.

Oghanna added that the United States was instrumental in brokering the agreement between the SDF and the government.

“The US is in a unique position, because it enjoys good relations with the SDF and the government,” Oghanna said, noting that Washington has been working with the Kurdish-led force against ISIL (ISIS) for more than a decade.

With the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government in late 2024, the US has also built close ties with the rebel commander who became Syria’s interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa. The Syrian president met US President Donald Trump at the White House last year and has formally joined the US-led coalition against ISIL.

The fighting in Aleppo began on Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh and Bani Zaid, amid tensions over a failure to implement a March 2025 agreement to reintegrate the Kurdish forces into state institutions.

Oghanna, Al Jazeera’s correspondent, said “all this fighting broke out because of a failure to integrate the SDF into government institutions.”

The deadline for the deal passed at the end of last year, and the SDF refused to leave areas that have been under its control since the early days of the Syrian war, which erupted in 2011.

Oghanna said that although the fighting in Aleppo has ended, “the fault line, the backdrop for this fighting, remains”.

“There are many difficult issues in Syria, but the greatest threat to national stability and unity remains this question of whether the SDF join Damascus and be under Damascus’s control,” he said.

The Syrian Army Operations Command said that its aircraft had monitored the SDF moving “armed groups along with medium and heavy weaponry” to Deir Hafer, east of Aleppo.

“Syrian army forces have been placed on full alert, deployment lines east of Aleppo have been reinforced, and all scenarios are being prepared for,” it said.

The SDF has a large amount of fighters, estimated at between 50,000 to 90,000. They are mainly in the northeast of the country and control almost a quarter of Syria’s territory.

Oghanna said the fighting in Aleppo makes the SDF integration “look far less likely”.

Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, told Al Jazeera that without addressing the underlying issues of finding a place for the SDF in the Syrian state a return to fighting was highly likely.

“All the main issues remain unresolved, and neither side is willing to compromise on fundamentals, so we’re going to see more clashes eventually,” Lund said.