Sheikh Maqsoud

Sheikh Maqsood (, , ), sometimes spelled al-Sheikh Maqsoud, Maqsud or Maksud, is a Kurdish-majority neighborhood in the city of Aleppo, Syria.

Syrian Civil War

During the Syrian Civil War, the Kurdish-majority People's Protection Units (YPG) took control of the neighborhood in 2012. Separated from the larger Kurdish regions of Syria, Sheikh Maqsood had been vulnerable to assaults by the Al-Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups which were besieging the district from all directions but the south and west until they were driven back by pro-government forces in 2016.

Islamist rebel groups frequently shelled Sheikh Maqsood. In May 2016, Amnesty International's regional director suggested that the attacks on Sheikh Maqsood constituted war crimes. Between February and April 2016, more than 83 civilians were killed by the attacks. In mid-June 2016, Russia accused the rebel militias of causing the death of over 40 civilians that month. A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman accused rebels of causing 1,000 civilian deaths and injuries, through their shelling of Sheikh Maqsood.

A United Nations report from February 2017 came to the conclusion that, while during the siege of Eastern Aleppo the attacks against Sheikh Maqsoud decreased, Islamist rebel groups affiliated with Fatah Halab, after vowing to take revenge on the Kurds in Sheikh Maqsoud, intentionally attacked civilian neighborhoods of the Kurdish enclave – killing and maiming dozens of civilians – and that these acts constituted the war crime of directing attacks against a civilian population.

On 22 February 2018, it was reported that the YPG had agreed to hand over the eastern districts of the city of Aleppo to the Syrian government. According to Syrian state television, this decision was made to reinforce positions around the region of Afrin, and to halt Turkey's offensive. This came days after pro-Syrian government fighters agreed to bolster the Kurdish forces in the northwest.

SOHR and a witness later said that Syrian government forces had entered the areas controlled by the Kurdish fighters. YPG spokesman Nouri Mahmoud however denied this claim. A YPG commander later stated that Kurdish fighters had shifted to Afrin to help repel a Turkish assault. As a result, he said the pro-Syrian government forces had regained control of the districts previously controlled by them.

In February 2023, the neighborhood was affected by an earthquake.

Following the fall of the Assad regime in 2024 and the subsequent capture of Aleppo by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafieh neighborhoods retained their autonomy as the SDF denied other militants access to the areas. Kurdish control over the districts was later solidified through multiple agreements between the SDF and the Syrian transitional government in December 2024 and April 2025. The agreements stipulate that only the SDF-affiliated internal security forces (Asayish) may remain in both neighborhoods. On 4 April the first SDF convoys started leaving the neighbourhood towards Tabqa in DAANES-administered territory (Rojava) and transferred control to the Asayish.

References

Neighborhoods of Aleppo
Kurdish communities in Syria

{{Neighbourhoods of Aleppo