Displaced Aleppo residents return home after days of intense clashes

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of displaced residents returned Monday to an Aleppo neighborhood in northern Syria after days of intense fighting between government forces and Kurdish fighters.

The clashes, which killed at least 23 people and displaced tens of thousands, broke out on Jan. 6 in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Achrafieh, Sheikh Maqsoud and Bani Zeid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on implementation of a deal that would merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured the three neighborhoods.

On Monday, armed security forces stood guard as traffic flowed normally through the streets of Achrafieh, while buses carried displaced families back to the neighborhood. Many shops had reopened, although residents complained about electricity cuts.

Jamal al-Youssef, an Arab resident, fled with his family for about four days because of the fighting. He said he welcomed the departure of the Kurdish fighters and the government’s exertion of control over the neighborhood.

“We’ve been waiting for this to happen for a long time, not just recently,” al-Youssef said, but added quickly that there was no issue between Arab and Kurdish civilians in the area. “We have three or four Kurdish families in my building and we don’t feel there’s any difference between us.”

The majority of some 148,000 displaced people had fled to the district of Afrin in the northwest of Aleppo province. About 10 buses carrying 700 families returned to Achrafieh on Monday, said Masoud Battal, director of the Afrin region for the Syrian government.

“I left Achrafieh five days ago. I was in Afrin and now we’re returning to our homes, thank God," said Mohammed Sheikho, who was on one of the buses.

Meanwhile, crews were combing through the neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud to decommission leftover explosives and tow away destroyed vehicles blocking the roads. Security forces were also inspecting tunnels under the neighborhood that appeared to have been used by fighters.

Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, formed after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkey-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.

The SDF has for years been the main U.S. partner in Syria in fighting against the Islamic State group, but Turkey considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkey.

Last week's fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes amid shelling and drone strikes.

Hundreds of Kurdish fighters evacuated from the contested area in Aleppo to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF, over the weekend under a deal reached between the SDF and government authorities.

However, tensions remained high between the two sides.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA reported Monday evening that the Syrian army sent reinforcements to the deployment line east of Aleppo after seeing a buildup of SDF forces in the eastern Aleppo countryside near the towns of Maskana and Deir Hafer.

The SDF said in a statement that “there are no military movements or troop buildups by our forces in the aforementioned areas, and that all circulating claims are entirely unfounded." It accused the government of an “attempt to manufacture tension and create pretexts for escalation.”

Buses carry displaced residents as they return to the Achrafieh neighborhood after days of fighting between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Displaced residents return to a the Achrafieh neighborhood after days of fighting between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Displaced residents return to a the Achrafieh neighborhood after days of fighting between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Buses carrying displaced residents drive past a building in ruins as they return to the Achrafieh neighborhood after days of fighting between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

Displaced residents look out from a bus window as they return to the Achrafieh neighborhood after days of fighting between government forces and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)

MUNICH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 20, 2026--

Dr. James Yu, Chairman and CEO of autonomous vehicle technology leader QCraft, engaged in an in-depth discussion with industry experts at the Intelligent Vehicles & Production 2026 conference on March 18, contending that autonomous driving is the most commercially viable pathway to physical AI—the emerging class of intelligence that understands and operates in the real world.

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The two-day conference, held in Garching bei München and jointly organized by the Center Automotive Research (CAR) and Technische Universität München (TUM), drew senior leaders from Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Bosch, Siemens, Rheinmetall, and other major industry players for a series of discussions on the future of intelligent vehicles, autonomous driving, and production innovation.

Dr. Yu's presentation, titled "Beyond Autonomous Driving: Physical AI in the Real World," was followed by a detailed exchange with Professor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, founder of the Center Automotive Research in Bochum, Germany, and host of the forum. The conversation touched on the challenges and opportunities of bringing physical AI from theory to production at global scale.

During the session, which also featured Nico Michels of Siemens, Dr. Christian Steinborn of Rheinmetall, and Prof. Alois Knoll of TUM, Dr. Yu traced the arc of autonomous driving through three distinct stages. The first, he explained, relied on modular machine intelligence, where perception, prediction, and planning operated independently. The second saw the rise of human-like end-to-end learning, with AI trained on massive datasets to mimic human driving behavior. Now, in 2026, Dr. Yu maintained the industry is entering a third and defining phase: superhuman intelligence, driven by VLA large models, world models, and reinforcement learning. This is where AI no longer imitates humans but begins to truly understand the physical world.

"In the digital world, AI has already approached the level of general intelligence, and may even be entering the era of superintelligence. But the next great breakthrough will come from the physical world. When AI begins to understand gravity, friction, and human intention, that is where the biggest impact will be felt,” said Dr. Yu.

As an example of how this vision is becoming a reality, Dr. Yu pointed to a major milestone QCraft reached: more than one million vehicles now operate with the company's Navigate on Autopilot system. He described each of those vehicles as a robot on four wheels, collecting real-world data from complex and unpredictable driving scenarios every day. Taken together, he emphasized, this growing fleet forms an unmatched training ground for physical AI.

A central topic in the discussion was the core challenge facing autonomous driving: testing in the physical world is inherently costly and time-consuming. Because autonomous driving must be thoroughly validated across an enormous range of scenarios to ensure safety, Dr. Yu underscored, achieving that bar is exceptionally difficult. That is why QCraft has built what Dr. Yu likened to a virtual driving school, where world models simulate millions of these safety-critical scenarios and reinforcement learning allows the AI to test, fail, and optimize its decisions, all before the vehicle hits the road.

QCraft chose Munich for its European headquarters, which opened in September 2025. That was no coincidence, Dr. Yu said. Munich sits at the crossroads of two worlds QCraft wants to bridge: the fast-moving AI ecosystem forged on China's dense, unpredictable roads, and Germany's century-long tradition of automotive engineering excellence. The company is now actively building a team there, recruiting top talent to support its global expansion.

Dr. Yu closed with a broader ambition. What QCraft is building, he said, is not simply a smarter car. It is a physical intelligence platform. Today it drives passenger cars. Tomorrow, he suggested, the same underlying intelligence could power robots and any machine that must perceive, reason, and act in the physical world. The autonomous vehicle, in his telling, is just the first chapter.

About QCraft

QCraft is a global leader in L2++ to L4 autonomous driving (AD) solutions for automakers. Founded in Silicon Valley in 2019, the company has deployed its technology in more than 1 million vehicles. Powered by a world-class R&D team and partnerships with leading OEMs and tech companies, QCraft combines proven large-scale adoption with industry-leading safety and efficiency to bring autonomous driving into real life.

Dr. James Yu of QCraft and Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the founder of the Center Automotive Research (CAR)