ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday said it is working with “relevant parties” in Syria to safely evacuate the people of the strategic town of Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo province to northeast Syria (Rojava) amid intense attacks by Turkish-backed militants.
“Our forces have bravely defended our people in Aleppo, Tal Rifaat, and the Shahba region. We are coordinating with all relevant parties in Syria to ensure the safety of our people and facilitate their evacuation from Tal Rifaat and Shahba to our secure regions in northeastern Syria,” said a statement from Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the SDF.
While the Kurdish-led force is still in control of the Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods in Aleppo city, its attempts to establish a corridor connecting Rojava with Aleppo and Tal Rifaat were “disrupted” by Turkish-backed militants, according to Abdi.
“Our forces face intense attacks from multiple fronts,” he stressed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported on Saturday that Turkish-backed militants took control of Tal Rifaat and nearby villages from the SDF.
As a coalition of rebel forces led by the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) marched on Aleppo and sent regime soldiers fleeing, the SDF took control of strategic locations in eastern Aleppo and formed a corridor to the city from the Euphrates River, briefly capturing key sites such as Aleppo International Airport.
It later tactically withdrew from many of the sites, while maintaining hold over Aleppo’s Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyeh, both long held by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) - the SDF’s backbone.
On Sunday, the HTS-led opposition government in Idlib called on the SDF to withdraw from Aleppo towards northeast Syria, promising to take care of civilians in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods.
But SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami rejected rumors that the Kurdish force had withdrawn from the neighborhoods.
Rojava’s ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) claimed in a statement on X that the Kurdish-held Shahba area in northern Aleppo is “witnessing massacres” by Turkey-backed militants.
The SDF on Sunday urged the people in Rojava to “heed the call” for a general mobilization declared hours prior by the Kurdish-led administration.
Turkey, which backs various Syrian rebel groups, has threatened in the past to carry out an offensive to remove Kurdish fighters from Tal Rifaat. It said it is closely following the situation and urged the clashing parties not to cause “larger instabilities.”
Ankara also accused Kurdish forces in Tal Rifaat and nearby Manbij of “trying to take advantage of the current state of instability.”
On Sunday, a joint statement by the US, France, Germany, and the UK urged de-escalation in Syria “to prevent further displacement and disruption of humanitarian access.”
“The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict,” the statement stressed.