At least 12 people have reportedly been killed during two days of intense clashes between Syrian government and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo.

Tens of thousands of civilians have also fled the Kurdish majority neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, which the Syrian army shelled on Wednesday afternoon after designating them as “closed military areas”.

The government said the operation was a response to attacks by armed groups in the areas and was “solely aimed at preserving security”.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia alliance – which insists it has no military presence in Aleppo – called it a “criminal attempt” to forcibly displace residents.

One Aleppo resident told the BBC on Wednesday that the situation was “terrible and awful”.

“All my friends have left for other towns. Sometimes it is calm and suddenly war starts again,” they said.

A displaced man from Ashrafieh, Samer Issa, told Reuters news agency that he was sleeping in a mosque which had been turned into a shelter with his young children.

“The shelling intensified. We left because our children could no longer endure the hits and the shelling,” he said, describing the situation as “heartbreaking”.

The violence underscores the challenges facing the government of President Ahmad al-Sharaa in a country that remains deeply divided a year after he led the rebel offensive that overthrew Bashar al-Assad.

In March 2025, the Kurdish-led SDF, which controls much of Syria’s north-east and has tens of thousands of fighters, signed a deal to integrate all military and civilian institutions into the Syrian state.

But that has not happened yet, with both sides accusing each other of trying to derail the agreement.

The SDF remains reluctant to give up the autonomy it won during the country’s 13-year civil war, when it helped US-led forces defeat the Islamic State (IS) group.

The stand-off in Aleppo also risks dragging in Turkey, which backs the government and considers the Kurdish militia that dominates the SDF as a terrorist organisation.