Aleppo, Northern Syria – Turkish-backed Syrian National Armey groups have removed their checkpoints from Afrin, a Kurdish-majority city in northwest Syria, which they have controlled since 2018 following a military offensive against the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), according to local and defense officials.
A defense official from the new transitional Syrian administration told AFP on Tuesday that while the military presence and checkpoints have been withdrawn, existing faction headquarters would remain in place for now.
“There will be only one public security checkpoint in the area,” the official said, requesting anonymity. “We can’t yet relocate fighters from northern Syria to former regime bases due to repeated Israeli strikes.”
A Kurdish source familiar with developments in Afrin told AFP that local residents are demanding the full withdrawal of Turkish-backed factions, which have long faced accusations of abuses against the Kurdish population.
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The SDF, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters, has reportedly made several demands in ongoing negotiations with the Syrian transitional administration. These include ensuring that public security forces in Afrin are made up exclusively of local residents, and that displaced families return under the supervision of international organizations or allied nations within the anti-ISIS coalition.
Turkey and its allied factions seized Afrin in March 2018 after a two-month military campaign targeting the SDF. The offensive displaced roughly half of Afrin’s estimated 320,000 residents, according to the United Nations. Most have not returned.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, documented a range of violations committed by Turkish-backed groups following the occupation, including arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, and looting. Amnesty called on Ankara to rein in its allied forces and end “serious human rights abuses.”
On March 10, Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s top commander, signed a political and military integration agreement with Ahmed al-Shar’a, head of the Syrian transitional authority. The agreement includes provisions for the reintegration of state institutions and guarantees the return of displaced Syrians to their towns and villages.
Last week, a related deal was reached concerning two Kurdish-majority neighborhoods in Aleppo—Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh—resulting in the withdrawal of over 500 SDF fighters to areas under the autonomous administration in northeast Syria and the removal of visible armed presence.
In a post on X, Badran Jia Kurd, a senior adviser to the Autonomous Administration, described the Aleppo agreement as “the first phase of a broader plan to ensure the safe return of Afrin’s population,” adding that negotiations toward that goal are ongoing.
The SDF currently controls significant territory in northern and eastern Syria and played a key role in the U.S.-led coalition’s campaign to defeat Islamic State, which lost its last territorial foothold in Syria in 2019.
