A Kurdish-majority neighborhood in Syria recovers from clashes with hope for the future

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) - A month after clashes rocked a Kurdish-majority neighborhood in Syria 's second-largest city of Aleppo, most of the tens of thousands of residents who fled the fighting between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have returned - an unusually quick turnaround in a country where conflict has left many displaced for years.

"Ninety percent of the people have come back," Aaliya Jaafar, a Kurdish resident of the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood who runs a hair salon, said Saturday. "And they didn't take long. This was maybe the shortest displacement in Syria."

Her family only briefly left their house when government forces launched a drone strike on a lot next door where weapons were stored, setting off explosions.

The Associated Press visited the community that was briefly at the center of Syria's fragile transition from years of civil war as the new government tries to assert control over the country and gain the trust of minority groups anxious about their security.

The clashes broke out Jan. 6 in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the SDF reached an impasse in talks on how to merge Syria's largest remaining armed group into the national army. Security forces captured the neighborhoods after several days of intense fighting during which at least 23 people were killed and more than 140,000 people displaced.

However, Syria's new government took measures to avoid civilians being harmed, unlike during previous outbreaks of violence between its forces and other groups on the coast and in the southern province of Sweida, during which hundreds of civilians from the Alawite and Druze religious minorities were killed in sectarian revenge attacks.

Before entering the contested Aleppo neighborhoods, the Syrian army opened corridors for civilians to flee.

Ali Sheikh Ahmad, a former member of the SDF-affiliated local police force who runs a secondhand clothing shop in Sheikh Maqsoud, was among those who left. He and his family returned a few days after the fighting stopped.

At first, he said, residents were afraid of revenge attacks after Kurdish forces withdrew and handed over the neighborhood to government forces. But that has not happened. A ceasefire agreement between Damascus and the SDF has been holding, and the two sides have made progress toward political and military integration.

"We didn't have any serious problems like what happened on the coast or in Sweida," Sheikh Ahmad said. The new security forces "treated us well," and residents' fears began to dissipate.

Jaafar agreed that residents had been afraid at first but that government forces "didn't harm anyone, to be honest, and they imposed security, so people were reassured."

The neighborhood's shops have since reopened and traffic moves normally, but the checkpoint at the neighborhood's entrance is now manned by government forces instead of Kurdish fighters.

Residents, both Kurds and Arabs, chatted with neighbors along the street. An Arab man who said he was named Saddam after the late Iraqi dictator - known for oppressing the Kurds - smiled as his son and a group of Kurdish children played with a dirty but friendly orange kitten.

Other children played with surgical staplers from a neighborhood hospital that was targeted during the recent fighting, holding them like toy guns. The government accused the SDF of taking over the hospital and using it as a military site, while the SDF said it was sheltering civilians.

One boy, looking pleased with himself, emerged from an alleyway carrying the remnant of an artillery shell.

On Friday, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi said he had held a "very productive meeting" with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich to discuss progress made on the integration agreement.

While the security situation is calm, residents said their economic plight has worsened. Many previously relied on jobs with the SDF-affiliated local authorities, who are no longer in charge. And small businesses suffered after the clashes drove away customers and interrupted electricity and other services.

"The economic situation has really deteriorated," Jaafar said. "For more than a month, we've barely worked at all."

Others are taking a longer view. Sheikh Ahmad said he hopes that if the ceasefire remains in place and the political situation stabilizes, he will be able to return to his original home in the town of Afrin near the border with Turkey, which his family fled during a 2018 Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces.

Like many Syrians. Sheikh Ahmad has been displaced multiple times since mass protests against the government of then-President Bashar Assad spiraled into a brutal 14-year civil war.

Assad was ousted in November 2024 in an insurgent offensive, but the country has continued to see sporadic outbreaks of violence, and the new government has struggled to win the trust of religious and ethnic minorities.

Last month, interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a decree strengthening the rights of Syria's Kurdish minority, including recognizing Kurdish as a national language along with Arabic and adopting Nowruz, a traditional celebration of spring and renewal marked by Kurds around the region, as an official holiday. Kurds make up about 10% of Syria's population.

The decree also restored the citizenship of tens of thousands of Kurds in northeastern al-Hasakeh province after they were stripped of it during the 1962 census

Sheikh Ahmad said he was encouraged by al-Sharaa's attempts to reassure the Kurds that they are equal citizens and hopes to see more than tolerance among Syria's different communities.

"We want something better than that. We want people to love each other. We've had enough of wars after 15 years. It's enough," he said.