Progress has stalled on implementing a March deal to merge the Kurds’ semi-autonomous administration and military into Syria’s new government, and tensions have occasionally erupted into clashes, particularly in Aleppo, which has two Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods.

State news agency SANA reported that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had “targeted the area near the Shihan roundabout, resulting in the death of one defence ministry member”.

It later added “three civilians, including two women” were killed in “SDF bombing of residential buildings in Aleppo city’s Al-Midan neighbourhood”.

The SDF, in a statement issued before the state media reports, announced groups affiliated with the government “targeted the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood with a reconnaissance drone”, resulting in “the death of one resident and the wounding of two others”.

Aleppo’s Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh neighbourhoods have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF, despite Kurdish fighters agreeing to withdraw from the areas in April.

Separately, the SDF accused factions affiliated with Syria’s army of attacking the town of Deir Hafer, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Aleppo, and near the strategic Tishreen Dam to the city’s northeast.

The Kurdish-led force affirmed its right to “respond legitimately to these attacks”.

The SDF controls large swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and northeast, and with the support of a US-led international coalition, was integral to the territorial defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019.

Its integration into the state following the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad a year ago has proven complicated, and the original March agreement was supposed to be implemented by the end of 2025.

On Sunday, SDF chief Mazloum Abdi held further talks with officials in Damascus on integrating the Kurdish-led forces, but state media said no tangible results were achieved.

The Kurds have repeated calls for decentralisation — which Syria’s new authorities have rejected.

Last month in Aleppo, deadly clashes killed five people, in violence that came after Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan of Turkey — a close ally of the new authorities — urged the SDF during a visit to Damascus not to be an obstacle to Syria’s stability.

For days, social media users have been circulating reports of gunfire on December 30 at the palace, which overlooks the capital.

Earlier on Monday, Syrian authorities denied Sharaa had been targeted in any security incident, while two sources told AFP a shooting took place in Damascus’s presidential palace last week.

In a video circulated online on Monday evening, Sharaa was shown buying items from a shop in Damascus using the new Syrian currency, which went into circulation on January 1.

Interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba said “reports claiming a security incident targeted” Sharaa or other senior figures were “totally baseless”.

“We categorically affirm that these claims are entirely false,” he added.

A diplomat from a country that supports Syria’s new authorities told AFP on condition of anonymity that “a shooting took place at the presidential palace on the evening of December 30”.

Separately, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, told AFP a shooting inside the palace that evening lasted “around 12 minutes” and left several wounded.

Abdel Rahman, whose Britain-based Observatory relies on a network of sources inside Syria, added the incident was caused by “an internal dispute” between individuals at the palace and did not target Sharaa.

The Syrian leader, who appears sporadically, had not been seen in public since he unveiled the country’s new currency last Monday.