Fighting in Aleppo Deepens Damascus-SDF Divide and Threatens Broader Escalation

In the last week, active fighting between the Syrian army and Kurdish-led Interior Security Forces (Asayish) in two Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods in Aleppo has deepened the divide between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), further derailing the already stalled negotiations to implement the March 10 agreement. This violent turn lays bare the inability of Damascus and Kurdish-led forces over the last ten months to find a middle ground between the centralisation approach of Damascus and decentralisation demands by the SDF.