ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish forces on Thursday accused Damascus-aligned factions of carrying out drone, heavy artillery, and Grad rocket attacks in the third consecutive day of clashes between the two sides in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsood in northern Aleppo.
In a statement posted on X, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that “two civilians were injured in a drone strike carried out by factions affiliated with the Damascus government in the Bani Zaid neighborhood” of northern Aleppo. Medics were unable to evacuate the wounded “due to continued shelling of the area,” the statement added.
Earlier, the SDF had published two videos that it said showed “factions of the Damascus [interim] government shelling the densely populated Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood in the city of Aleppo with heavy artillery,” accusing the factions of “deliberately targeting civilians” and “committing a documented war crime that cannot be justified by any religious or military slogan.”
The SDF also said that Damascus-aligned factions “shelled residential areas in the eastern part of Sheikh Maqsood using tanks and Grad rockets, causing material damage.”
Separately, the Kurdish Internal Security Forces (Asayish) in Aleppo reported that “armed factions affiliated with the transitional government targeted the al-Shaqif neighborhood” - located north of Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsood - with “a suicide drone.”
The Asayish added that the factions also carried out “artillery shelling using tanks along the Castello axis,” which borders the Kurdish neighborhoods from the north and west.