After Sheikh Maqsoud & Ashrafia: On the Fall of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration in Syria

“What was being defended was not only Sheikh Maqsoud, but the possibility for Kurds in Syria to exist as visible urban political subjects, rooted in their city as an equal collective identity to others within it.” This article was initially written at a moment when the confrontation in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafia appeared to be a localized event within the city of Aleppo. However, the rapid developments that followed the fall of the two neighbourhoods reshaped the meaning of what had occurred. What at first seemed like an isolated episode now appears as the beginning of a broader process. The article can therefore be read not only as an account of the fall of the last Kurdish neighbourhoods west of the Euphrates, but also as an early analysis of the collapse of the political and military balance that had governed relations between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Damascus, and Ankara since the fall of Assad. Yet, more importantly, it is a report of the significant shift that brought the autonomous project in Rojava to a new, very challenging, greatly debated phase.