Syrian government declares ceasefire after clashes with Kurdish fighters

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — Syria's minister of defense announced a ceasefire Tuesday after overnight clashes between security forces and Kurdish fighters in neighborhoods of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

Murhaf Abu Qasra said in a statement that he had met with Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in Damascus and “agreed on a comprehensive ceasefire across all fronts and military positions in northern and northeastern Syria.”

“The implementation of this agreement will begin immediately,” he said.

The overnight violence came as tensions have grown between the central government in Damascus and Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces targeted checkpoints of the Internal Security Forces on Monday evening, killing one and wounding four.

SDF forces fired into residential areas in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods of Aleppo “with mortar shells and heavy machine guns,” SANA reported, adding there were civilian casualties, but didn't share figures.

Residents of the area told The Associated Press two security guards in a public park were killed Tuesday by shelling and a woman and a child were wounded.

The SDF denied attacking the checkpoints and said its forces withdrew from the area months ago. It blamed the outbreak of violence on aggression by government forces.

The SDF issued a statement Tuesday accusing government military factions of carrying out “repeated attacks” against civilians in the two Aleppo neighborhoods and imposing a siege on them.

Government forces then attempted “to advance with tanks and armored vehicles, targeting residential areas with mortar shells and drone strikes, which has led to civilian casualties and significant damage to property,” the SDF said, which “provoked the residents and pushed them to defend themselves, alongside the internal security forces in the neighborhoods.”

Mohammed Hassan, a resident of the Bani Zeid neighborhood in Aleppo, was at home with his wife and three children when they started to hear sounds of gunfire and their house was shaken by shelling nearby. Once the fighting died down, they fled.

“Every now and then this happens, there are strikes from one side or the other, but the problems were worse than before yesterday,” he told the AP. “People were ready to die of fear.”

The new leadership in Damascus under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group that helped overthrow former Syrian President Bashar Assad, inked a deal in March with the U.S.-backed SDF, which controls much of the country’s northeast.

Under the agreement, the SDF was to merge its forces with the new Syrian army, but implementation has stalled.

Also Tuesday, al-Sharaa's office said in a statement that the interim president had met with U.S. envoy Tom Barrack and discussed implementation of the agreement with the SDF “in a manner that safeguards Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and other “ways to support the political process" and to "enhance security and stability.”

Damascus seeks to consolidate control over all of Syria, while the SDF wants to maintain the de facto autonomy of northeast Syria from the central state. Syria held a parliamentary election on Sunday in most areas of Syria, but voting was not held in SDF-controlled areas.

In April, scores of SDF fighters left the two predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo as part of the deal with Damascus.

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Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.

Children look at a damaged car in the Saif al-Dawla district of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, following overnight clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Residents leave the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, following overnight clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Residents walk past a security forces checkpoint as they leave the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, following overnight clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Syrian security forces stand guard as residents leave the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, following overnight clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

A Syrian government soldier assists a man carrying his belongings as residents leave the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, following overnight clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Syrian security forces stand guard as residents leave the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, following overnight clashes between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

NEW YORK (AP) — Ten years ago, Kim Gordon — a revolutionary force in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, the ’80s New York no wave scene and the space between art and noise — debuted solo music. At the time, she was already decades into a celebrated, mixed-medium creative career.

The midtempo “Murdered Out” was her first single, where clangorous, overdubbed guitars met the unmistakable rasp of her deadpan intonations. It was a surprise from an experimentalist well-versed in the unexpected: The song took inspiration from Los Angeles car culture, and its main collaborator was the producer Justin Raisen, then best known for his pop work with Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX. Their partnership has continued in the decade since, and on March 13, Gordon will drop her third solo album, “Play Me,” announced Wednesday alongside the release of a hazy, transcendent single, “Not Today.”

“It was a happy accident,” she says of her continued work with Raisen. “In the beginning, I was somewhat skeptical of working with a producer and collaborator, really. But it’s turned out to be incredibly freeing.”

“Play Me” follows Gordon's critically lauded, beat-heavy 2024 album “The Collective,” a noisy body of work that featured oddball trap blasts. It earned her two Grammy nominations — a career first — for alternative music album and alternative music performance. Those were for the song “Bye Bye,” with its eerie, dissonant beat originally written for rapper Playboi Carti. For “Play Me,” Gordon reimagined the track for the closer, “Bye Bye 25!” She says it was the result of her thinking about the rap world, where revisiting and remixing is commonplace.

“I came up with the idea of using these words that Trump had sort of ‘banned’ in his mind,” she says of the new song's lyrics. (An example: “Injustice / Opportunity / Dietary guidelines / Housing for the future.” President Donald Trump’s administration associates the terms with diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which it has vowed to root out across the government.) For Gordon, because it became “more conceptual … the remake doesn’t seem as anxiety-provoking as the original.”

There is a connective spirit between “The Collective” and “Play Me” — a shared confrontation, propulsive production and songs that possess a keen ability to process and reflect the world around Gordon. “It does feel kind of like an evolution,” she says of this album next to her last. “It’s sort of a more focused record, and immediate.” The songs are shorter and attentive.

Or, to put it more simply: “I like beats and that inspires me more than melodies,” she says. “Beats and space.”

That palette drives “Play Me,” a foundation in which staccato lyricism transforms and offers astute criticism. Consider the title track, which challenges passive listening and the devaluation of music in the age of streaming. She names Spotify playlist titles, imagined genres defined by mood rather than music. “Rich popular girl / Villain mode” she speak-sings, “Jazz and background / Chillin' after work.”

“It's just representative of, you know, this era we're in, this culture of convenience,” she says. “Music always represented a certain amount of freedom to me, and it feels like that’s kind of been blanketed over.”

Sonically, it is a message delivered atop a '70s groove, placing it in conversation with an era unshackled from these digital technologies.

The title, too, “is playing off the sort of passive nature of listening to music,” she says, “But also it could be seen as defiant. Like, I dare you to play me.”

There's also the blown-out “Subcon,” which examines the world's growing billionaire class and their fascination with space colonialization in a period of economic insecurity. In the song, Gordon's lyrical abstractions highlight the absurdity, taking aim at technocrats.

“I find reality inspirational, no matter how bad it is,” she says. Where some artists might veer away from the news, Gordon tackles truth. “I’m not sure what music is supposed to be. So, I’m just doing my version of it.”

In the end, she hopes listeners are “somewhat thrilled by” the album.

“'This is the music that I’ve wanted to hear,’ kind of feeling. Does that sound egotistical? I don’t know,” she laughs. If it is, it is earned.

1. “Play Me”

2. “Girl with a Look”

3. “No Hands”

4. “Black Out”

5. “Dirty Tech”

6. “Not Today”

7. “Busy Bee”

8. “Square Jaw”

9. “Subcon”

10. “Post Empire”

11. “Nail Bitter”

12. “Bye Bye 25!”

Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

Kim Gordon poses for a portrait in New York on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)

Kim Gordon poses for a portrait on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025, in New York (Photo by Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP)