Surveillance camera footage has documented direct and systematic targeting of residential areas by terrorist factions operating under the Ministry of Defense of the de facto authority, with attacks striking civilian-populated neighborhoods in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh in the city of Aleppo.

This conduct demonstrates a clear pattern of organized intimidation against the civilian population, through the use of armed force and explicit threats, with the aim of forcibly compelling residents to leave their homes. Under international humanitarian law, such practices are classified as forcible transfer and constitute a war crime in its full legal elements.

These actions were accompanied by the imposition of a suffocating siege on Sheikh Maqsoud, including intensive shelling, military encirclement with tanks, and explicit threats of a full-scale assault. The documented facts indicate a systematic policy intended to exhaust the civilian population psychologically and materially, and to drive them into forced displacement under the threat or use of weapons.

These acts constitute grave violations of international law and customary norms, and reflect a deliberate reliance on military coercion and psychological pressure as tools of control over civilians, in a context that rises to the level of international crimes.