Aleppo: Battleground Of Coercion And SDF Integration – Analysis
By Scott N. Romaniuk and László Csicsmann
Key Takeaways
- Aleppo as a Test Case: The renewed clashes in Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafiyah highlight how Aleppo functions as a ‘pilot zone’ for Damascus to apply pressure on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) without opening a broader front, making localised coercion a template for integration enforcement.
- Divergent Integration Goals: Damascus and the SDF have fundamentally different interpretations of ‘integration’, with Damascus seeking command-and-control restructuring and the SDF resisting political-military dismantlement. This divergence underpins the current friction.
- External Actors Shape the Environment: Türkiye, the United States (US), Russia, Iran, and Israel actively influence incentives, signaling, and constraints, creating a multi-vector environment where local developments have broader regional implications.
- Coercive Tactics over Open War: Post-‘halt-fire’ measures—movement restrictions, barriers, and supply controls—reflect calibrated coercion designed to extract concessions while avoiding large-scale escalation. Aleppo may set precedents for similar tactics elsewhere.
- Watchpoints for Escalation: The immediate concerns include the end-of-year SDF integration deadline, Türkiye’s force posture, Israeli activity in Quneitra and Daraa, US deconfliction, and ISIS resurgence. Mismanagement of these triggers could cascade into broader instability.
Introduction: Renewed Clashes in Aleppo
Over the past week, Syria’s most consequential security development has not been a mass-casualty attack by ISIS or an Israel–Iran confrontation, but the sudden resurgence of armed clashes between the Government of Syria (GoS) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo—centred on the Kurdish-majority enclaves of Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafiyah.
The exchange of mortar and rocket fire, alongside heavier weapons, was followed quickly by a mutually declared ‘halt-fire’, intended to prevent escalation. Even so, tensions remained high: movement restrictions, new checkpoints, disrupted supply lines, localised displacement toward Afrin and other areas, and intermittent interruptions to electricity and basic services reflected a post-ceasefire environment resembling coercive bargaining more than genuine stabilisation.
Aleppo functions as a stress test of the March integration framework and its end-of-year deadline. The clashes erupted as Ankara and Damascus publicly pressed for the dissolution of the SDF’s existing command structure and full integration under GoS terms, while Washington advocated for a managed pathway that preserves counter-ISIS continuity and prevents a security vacuum. Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafiyah are not merely neighbourhoods; they are politically charged symbols of Kurdish autonomy inside a major GoS-controlled city, making the operational picture particularly sensitive.
Concurrently, Türkiye raises the cost of delay while framing the SDF as regionally aligned with Israel to justify potential kinetic action. Israel, Russia, Iran, and the United States (US) remain active in the background, shaping incentives, signalling constraints, and influencing both tactical and strategic calculations. Attribution narratives further complicate the picture: GoS-linked sources depict the SDF and Asayish as initiators, while SDF accounts blame ‘Damascus factions.’ Each side uses these narratives to signal domestic legitimacy, assign blame, and generate leverage over the integration track. The ceasefire, though temporary, prevented escalation that could have derailed the broader negotiation process at a critical moment.
Diverging Integration Goals
The core driver of the Aleppo clashes is the divergent understanding of ‘integration’. Damascus seeks restructuring that translates into genuine command-and-control authority: SDF forces nested within the Syrian army framework, Syrian army deployments into SDF-held areas, and meaningful alteration of the SDF chain of command. The SDF signals conditional willingness to discuss unit incorporation but resists integration framed as synonymous with dismantling its political-military system, including Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) governance structures, internal security mechanisms, and local control.
Recurring discussions about reorganising SDF forces into a limited number of divisions or brigades suggest an effort to preserve corporate identity and buy time—precisely the outcome that Ankara rejects. Aleppo thus becomes a ‘pilot zone’ through which Damascus can apply pressure via access, administration, and mobility, turning local governance arrangements and humanitarian entry points into instruments of negotiation, without opening a major front in the north-east.
External Actors and Strategic Pressures
Concurrently, Türkiye raises the cost of delay while framing the SDF as regionally aligned with Israel to justify potential kinetic action. Israel, Russia, Iran, and the US remain active in the background, shaping incentives, signalling constraints, and influencing both tactical and strategic calculations. Attribution narratives further complicate the picture: GoS-linked sources depict the SDF and Asayish as initiators, while SDF accounts blame ‘Damascus factions.’ The ‘halt-fire’ prevented escalation that could have derailed the broader negotiation process at a critical moment, even as underlying disputes persisted. Clashes in Aleppo coincided with the visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who aimed to advance integration efforts. Fidan attributed the slow pace of integration to the SDF, accusing it of intentionally attempting to derail the process.
The US demonstrates counter-ISIS resolve while pushing for a managed political outcome, signalling tactical coordination where interests overlap and emphasising integration as a stabilising requirement. Russia is re-engaging primarily through diplomacy rather than battlefield arbitration, seeking to preserve influence, prevent exclusive Turkish or US dominance, and retain channels that can constrain Israeli freedom of action. Iran’s posture is opportunistic but constrained, seeking residual influence while facing Israeli pressure and operating in a less permissive Syrian environment. Israel is hardening a southern buffer and shaping Syria’s internal communal map, raising Damascus’ threat perception and complicating the GoS–SDF file.
Table 1: Actor Objectives and Strategic Levers in Aleppo
| Actor | Strategic Objectives | Tools / Levers | Likely Short-term Actions | Notes / Constraints |
| GoS (Damascus) | Monopoly of force; integrate SDF under state control | Military deployments, checkpoints, barriers, coercive measures | Localised pressure in Aleppo; symbolic coercion without full escalation | Balancing internal consolidation, international normalisation, ISIS risk |
| SDF | Preserve autonomy; avoid dismantlement | Ceasefire compliance, controlled de-escalation, negotiation, leverage of external actors | Delay structural integration; seek guarantees from the US; protect Kurdish enclaves | Vulnerable to Turkish pressure and Damascus coercion |
| Türkiye | Reduce SDF autonomy; prevent Kurdish consolidation | Political messaging, threat of kinetic action, support for Syrian operations | Pressure Damascus and the SDF; frame the SDF as a regional threat; readiness signalling | Constrained by US deconfliction and regional optics |
| US | Counter-ISIS; maintain stabilisation; manage the integration process | Military strikes, deconfliction, diplomatic leverage | Coordinate counter-terrorism efforts; push the integration framework; prevent a security vacuum | Must balance GoS, SDF, Türkiye, and ISIS priorities |
| Russia | Maintain influence; mediate without direct arbitration | Diplomacy, political cover, selective security support |
Damascus is pursuing a monopoly of force, but it cannot afford a destabilising war while simultaneously seeking international normalisation and internal consolidation. Publicly, GoS officials emphasise national unity and portray the SDF as deliberately delaying a broader state-building project.
Operationally, the post-clash measures observed in Aleppo—checkpoints, barriers, and alleged restrictions on movement and supplies—fit a pattern of calibrated coercion: applying pressure within a contained arena, extracting concessions, and avoiding the triggering of large-scale external backlash. Damascus also operates within a crowded threat environment, including the risk of ISIS resurgence, Israeli raids in the south, and localised communal frictions. This combination creates a strong incentive to discipline the SDF politically while keeping violence below thresholds that would expose state weakness or invite external intervention.
The SDF’s short-term strategy is to avoid isolation: de-escalate tactically, resist structural dissolution, and seek external guarantees. Public messaging emphasises ceasefire compliance and civilian harm claims in Sheikh Maqsoud and al-Ashrafiyah, while keeping the door open to negotiations and casting doubt on GoS intentions.
The SDF appears to prefer a longer runway—pushing substantive bargaining into 2026—on the logic that time serves as a protector of autonomy. That logic, however, collides with Ankara’s and Damascus’ shared framing of delay as stalling. The SDF’s core structural vulnerability lies in its position at the intersection of three external lenses: Türkiye’s counter-Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) priorities, Damascus’ sovereignty imperative, and Washington’s counter-ISIS requirements. When these lenses align, even partially, around the principle of integration, the SDF’s manoeuvring space narrows sharply.
The US, Russia, Iran, and Israel in the Background
The US is simultaneously demonstrating counter-ISIS resolve while pushing for a managed political outcome, as GoS–SDF instability now constitutes a direct counter-terrorism risk. The recent large-scale US strike package against ISIS-linked targets carries political weight alongside its military effect: it signals decisive action against ISIS while implying that tactical coordination with Damascus can occur where interests overlap. This dual signalling increases US leverage over both sides. Damascus perceives an opening for security cooperation and incremental legitimacy, while the SDF is reminded that Washington’s priority remains counter-ISIS continuity and broader stabilisation rather than Kurdish maximalist outcomes.
US emphasis on integration as a stabilising requirement underscores a preferred end-state of incorporation without collapse, thereby avoiding a security vacuum that ISIS could exploit. The friction is definitional: Türkiye interprets integration as disbandment, whereas the US understands it as state incorporation with continuity. These definitions become incompatible if Ankara concludes that the post-deadline window represents the final opportunity to reshape the SDF through force.
Russia is re-engaging primarily through diplomacy rather than battlefield arbitration, seeking a seat in the reconfiguration of Syria’s security architecture. Moscow’s incentives are to preserve influence, prevent exclusive Turkish or US dominance, and retain channels that can be activated to constrain Israeli freedom of action when useful. Russia’s capacity to dictate outcomes is more limited than in earlier phases of the war, making its most likely role one of transactional mediation—offering political cover or limited security assistance in exchange for strategic positioning.
Iran’s posture is opportunistic but constrained. It has an interest in preventing a consolidated Syrian state aligned with Turkish and US preferences and in retaining residual networks, yet it operates under sustained pressure from Israeli actions and within a Syrian state environment that is less permissive than in earlier periods under Assad. The most plausible near-term Iranian approach is indirect: probing contested governance seams, amplifying anti-US narratives, and exploiting Arab–Kurd tensions rather than pursuing decisive intervention.
Israel is hardening a southern buffer while simultaneously shaping Syria’s internal communal map, raising Damascus’ threat perception and further complicating the GoS–SDF file. Israeli ground activity, checkpoints, and continued incursions in the south fuel local resentment and intensify Damascus’ imperative to project sovereignty. Parallel efforts to cultivate influence with local armed actors—particularly in Druze areas—add a second autonomy-sensitive file to Damascus’ agenda.
This dual focus on local armed actors is consequential, as it heightens suspicion of ‘externalised autonomy projects’ across Syria—both in the south and the north-east—and makes Damascus more receptive to narratives portraying the SDF as linked to external spoilers. Ankara’s allegations regarding SDF–Israel coordination therefore land in an environment already primed for securitised interpretations, irrespective of the underlying truth.
Risks and Watchpoints
The probability of some form of military action in the next two to six weeks is meaningfully elevated, but the most likely form remains limited and coercive rather than a full-scale campaign—unless the end-of-year deadline passes without a face-saving mechanism. Three scenarios stand out.
- Damascus Pressure: Damascus escalates pressure operations around symbolic friction points—such as the Aleppo enclaves—through selective deployments, controlled access restrictions, arrests, and the expansion of checkpoints in order to force concessions while keeping escalation below thresholds that would trigger US pushback or encourage Turkish unilateral action. The post-ceasefire controls observed in Aleppo are consistent with this pathway.
- Türkiye Intervention: A Türkiye-supported or Türkiye-enabled operation becomes more plausible if Ankara judges that the process is yielding cosmetic steps rather than irreversible integration. The cadence of warnings, readiness signalling, and joint-contingency language is designed to set the conditions for action. The principal brakes remain US deconfliction mechanisms and the risk of destabilising the counter-ISIS posture; yet Washington’s emphasis on integration may be interpreted in Ankara as tacit acceptance that the SDF must undergo fundamental change, even if kinetic escalation is not explicitly endorsed.
- Israeli Activity: Israeli activity in the south continues and may expand in a stop–start pattern, including raids, checkpoints, and targeted strikes. This elevates baseline volatility and increases the likelihood that Damascus securitises autonomy-related questions simultaneously across multiple theatres.
Table 2: Key Watchpoints and Risks in Aleppo
| Watchpoint / Trigger | Likely Action / Event | Potential Strategic Impact | Notes / Risk Level |
| End-of-year SDF integration deadline | Damascus escalates pressure operations (checkpoints, restricted access) | Forces concessions; raises tension without full war | Medium–High: Could normalise coercive tactics |
| Turkish posture and messaging | Threat of, or support for, kinetic action | Compresses SDF decision space; increases risk of localised escalation | High: Timing and coordination critical |
| Israeli activity in Quneitra/Daraa | Expanded raids, checkpoint networks | Raises baseline volatility; pressures Damascus | Medium: Limited but persistent destabilisation |
| US deconfliction and pressure | Maintains operational constraints; signals stabilisation priorities | Limits escalation; provides negotiation leverage | Medium: Prevents worst-case outcomes if aligned with actors |
| ISIS or extremist resurgence | Exploitation of friction zones | Could trigger US strikes and complicate local dynamics | High: Indirect but potentially destabilising |
| Humanitarian and civilian impact | Displacement, supply restrictions | Increases local resentment; affects the legitimacy of GoS and SDF | Medium: Amplifies political risk if mismanaged |
| Coordination failures between actors | Misinterpretation of moves by Türkiye, Israel, Damascus, or the SDF | Could trigger misaligned responses or accidental escalation | Medium–High: Risk of unintentional conflict due to multi-vector dynamics |
Saying vs. Doing: Multi-Actor Dynamics and Implications
An integrated reading of ‘saying versus doing’ clarifies the trajectory. Türkiye communicates in the language of unity and peaceful resolution while simultaneously building political justification and operational optionality for force; framing the SDF as regionally aligned with Israel is a delegitimising move that pressures Damascus to treat Kurdish autonomy as a national-security threat rather than a negotiable administrative arrangement. Damascus, in turn, speaks the language of state-building while applying calibrated coercion in Aleppo, signalling a preference for command-and-control integration rather than a federated compromise.
The SDF emphasises de-escalation and negotiation while positioning for a longer timeline, implying confidence that it can outlast deadline pressure—an assumption that becomes riskier if Ankara and Damascus synchronise. The US articulates stability and counterterrorism priorities while demonstrating high-tempo counter-ISIS capacity and insisting on integration, creating an inherently unstable triangle that could fracture if Turkish pressure turns kinetic. Russia signals diplomatic engagement that can either facilitate deconfliction or complicate Turkish and Western plans, depending on what Moscow is offered. Israel increasingly frames its posture in permanent regional-security terms while actively shaping facts on the ground in southern Syria, narrowing Damascus’ political space to compromise elsewhere without appearing weak.
The immediate risk is not that Aleppo becomes a major front, but that it becomes the precedent: a first crack that normalises coercive tactics, employs access as leverage, and hardens attitudes—particularly if humanitarian entry and civilian displacement are used as bargaining chips. The strategic risk is a cascading security gap: GoS–SDF friction distracts from counter-ISIS operations at a moment when ISIS activity is sufficiently serious to trigger major US retaliation, creating openings for cells to regenerate in contested seams. The regional risk is multi-vector escalation if Turkish deadline pressure, Israeli southern actions, and instability in eastern Syria converge, producing an environment in which multiple actors conclude that moving first is safer than waiting.
Key watchpoints remain: tangible ‘irreversible steps’ in the integration process (command-chain changes, Syrian army deployments into SDF-held areas, absorption mechanisms) versus symbolic announcements; shifts in Turkish force posture and the tempo of political messaging as the deadline passes; US deconfliction posture and whether pressure on the SDF accelerates; and the pace and geography of Israeli activity in Quneitra/Daraa, particularly any transition from intermittent raids to sustained territorial shaping.
About the authors:
- Scott N. Romaniuk—Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Asia Studies, Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies (CIAS); Department of International Relations, Institute of Global Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary.
- László Csicsmann—Full Professor and Head, Centre for Contemporary Asia Studies, Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies (CIAS); Senior Research Fellow, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs (HIIA), Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary.
