Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) exchanged fire on Tuesday in a tense area in eastern Aleppo province, marking a possible new escalation after earlier clashes.

No casualties were immediately reported by the warring sides. The Syrian army earlier declared an area east of the northern city of Aleppo, the country’s second largest, as a “closed military zone.”

Eastern Aleppo province has been a tense frontline that has acted as a divider between areas under Syrian government control and the large swaths of northeastern Syria held by the SDF.

The renewed fighting near Aleppo is one of several instances since the 2024 fall of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in which the new Syrian army has engaged in violence against minority groups. It has killed thousands in massacres and clashes with local militias in Kurdish, Druze and Alawite areas.

In an interview with the Hebrew outlet Ynet on Tuesday, a Syrian Druze spiritual leader accused the new Syrian government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, of committing “genocide” during deadly fighting last year in the heavily Druze area of Sweida, in which hundreds of civilians were killed. Hikmat al-Hijri called for Syrian Druze to gain autonomy under the protective umbrella of Israel, which intervened in the Sweida clashes in July, striking Syrian government targets.

“It’s no secret that Israel was the only country in the world that intervened militarily and saved us from a genocide as it was happening,” Hijri told Ynet. He called the current Syrian government “ISIS-esque” and “a direct successor of al-Qaeda.”

“We see ourselves as an........

© The Times of Israel