Syrian Officials Accuse US-Backed Forces of Aleppo Attacks

Syrian government ministers have leveled a series of accusations against the United States-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), alleging hundreds of attacks on civilian areas in the northern city of Aleppo.

The allegations focus on ongoing hostilities in Aleppo, a city devastated by years of civil war. Syria’s Minister of Information, Hamza al-Mustafa, stated the SDF has launched approximately 350 attacks from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood over the past eight months, targeting public facilities and revealing the group's "criminal nature" [46798]. Separately, Minister of Emergency Management Raed al-Saleh accused the SDF of shelling residential areas, calling it a "blatant disregard for the lives and safety of civilians" [43615].

The SDF is a Kurdish-led alliance that controls large parts of northeastern Syria and has been a key ground partner for the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The Syrian government has long opposed its authority, particularly in resource-rich regions. The ministers' statements did not provide specific casualty figures from the recent alleged attacks, and there has been no immediate public response from the SDF [43615][46798].

These official accusations come amid other condemnations of violence within Syria. The Arab League Secretary-General condemned a recent "terrorist bombing" at a mosque in Homs [35398], which Syria's Information Minister also denounced as a "treacherous" attack [35404]. However, the core narrative from multiple Syrian ministers consistently points to the U.S.-backed SDF as a primary source of ongoing aggression in Aleppo [43615][46798].

The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abdel Rahman, offered a different perspective, criticizing the Syrian regime's narrative on Aleppo as "lies" and accusing U.S. billionaire Thomas Barrack of being a "moral partner" in past violence there [46931].

Aleppo remains divided between Syrian government and SDF control, and despite a reduction in major combat operations since 2016, the city continues to experience periodic violence and political friction [43615].