Clashes, siege continue in Kobane despite Damascus ceasefire: Rojava official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdish-majority city of Kobane in northeast Syria (Rojava) continues to witness clashes despite Damascus’s declared cessation of hostilities, a senior official from the Rojava administration said on Thursday, warning that the symbolic city remains under siege, with water, electricity, and internet services cut off - measures that “amount to war crimes.”

Elham Ahmad, a senior figure in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), said in a statement on X that “clashes in Kobane have continued since the start of the siege days ago, despite [Damascus’s] announcement of a ceasefire.”

The DAANES co-chair of foreign relations added that “water, electricity, and internet services have also been cut off,” noting that the measures “amount to war crimes.”

“We call on the relevant authorities to intervene to end the siege and the punishment of civilians by depriving them of their livelihoods,” Ahmad concluded.

Kobane holds deep significance for the Kurdish community. In 2014, the city became the focal point of a brutal assault by the Islamic State (ISIS), which at the time controlled vast swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.

In mid-September 2014, ISIS militants seized village after village, tightening their grip around Kobane and forcing thousands of civilians to flee into neighboring Turkey.

With support from the US-led Global Coalition against ISIS and reinforcements from Kurdistan Region Peshmerga forces, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) ultimately repelled the militants in January 2015. The victory marked ISIS’s first major military defeat and propelled Kobane into global headlines as a powerful symbol of resistance against extremism.

Ahmad’s remarks came shortly after a video of a Kobane resident went viral on Wednesday, in which he appealed to Elon Musk to provide Starlink internet access so that the voices of Kobane’s residents “can reach the outside world” and raise awareness about what he described as “this genocide.”

Since mid-January, the Syrian Arab Army and affiliated armed groups have advanced into areas held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in eastern Aleppo, as well as parts of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and the Kurdish-majority Hasaka province.

The SDF function as the de facto military force in Rojava and, until November - when Damascus joined the anti-ISIS coalition - served as the alliance’s sole on-the-ground partner, playing a key role in ISIS’s territorial defeat in Syria in 2019.

The Syrian presidency said on Tuesday that Damascus and the Kurdish-led SDF reached a “mutual understanding” on several issues, agreeing to “grant the SDF a period of four days for consultations to develop a detailed plan for the practical mechanism of integrating the areas [under their control]."

The presidency added that "if an agreement is reached, Syrian forces will not enter the centers of [the predominantly Kurdish cities of] Hasaka and Qamishli [in Rojava] and will remain on their outskirts."

The implementation of the understanding "will begin at 8:00 pm [local time] today [Tuesday]," the statement concluded.