The Syrian army is locked in intense fighting in Aleppo after Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters refused to withdraw under a ceasefire, as more civilians fled their homes to escape the violence in the northern Syrian city.Aleppo’s emergency chief Mohammed al-Rajab told Al Jazeera Arabic that 162,000 people have fled fighting in the city’s Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listA Syrian military source has told Al Jazeera Arabic that the army is “making progress” in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, the epicentre of the most intense fighting, and now controls 55 percent of the area.Meanwhile, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said that the military had arrested several members of the SDF in its latest operations in Sheikh Maqsoud, which the army announced on Friday evening after a deadline for Kurdish fighters to evacuate the area, imposed as part of its temporary ceasefire, expired.Syria’s Ministry of Defence had declared the ceasefire earlier on Friday, following three days of clashes that erupted after the central government and the SDF failed to implement a deal to fold the latter into the state apparatus.After some of the fiercest fighting seen since last year’s toppling of Syria’s former leader, Bashar al-Assad, Damascus presented Kurdish fighters a six-hour window to withdraw to their semi-autonomous region in the northeast of the country in a bid to end their longstanding control over parts of Aleppo.But Kurdish councils that run the city’s Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts rejected any “surrender” and pledged to defend areas that they have run since the early days of Syria’s war, …
