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This picture taken from Rafah shows smoke rising over buildings in Khan Yunis during Israeli bombardment, Gaza Strip, Palestine, Feb. 1, 2024. PHOTO: AFP
DAMASCUS:
Deadly clashes erupted in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish-led security personnel on Monday as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan urged the Kurds to integrate into the Syrian army.
The Syrian government and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces traded blame over who started the clashes, which killed three civilians according to tolls from Syrian state media and the SDF.
The violence comes ahead of a deadline
for implementing a March 10 agreement
between Damascus
and the Kurds to integrate the SDF — which controls vast swathes of Syria’s oil-rich northeast — into the state.
State news agency SANA said on Monday that “two civilians were killed and eight others were wounded in SDF shelling on districts of Aleppo”, a city that has witnessed heightened tensions and a previous bout of violence between the two sides in October.
