Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Wed 08/27/2025 View Tue 08/26/2025 View Mon 08/25/2025 View Sun 08/24/2025 View Sat 08/23/2025 View Fri 08/22/2025 View Thu 08/21/2025
2025-08-27 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Syrian security forces, notorious militia clash in Afrin
[Rudaw] Clashes erupted on Sunday night between Syrian security forces and the notorious US-sanctioned Suleiman Shah (al-Amshat) brigade in northwest Syria’s Kurdish city of Afrin after the bandidos murderous Moslems refused to hand over their bases, local activists said.

Ibrahim Shekho, a legal activist from Afrin, told Rudaw that festivities broke out between Damascus’s General Security forces and the Ottoman Turkish-backed militia group in the center of Afrin’s Shiye subdistrict.

The Suleiman Shah Brigade is a Ottoman Turkish-backed gang led by Mohammad Hussein al-Jassim (Abu Amsha). The US Treasury has sanctioned it for grave human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
violations in Afrin, including "abductions and extortion," primarily against Kurdish residents.

According to Shekho, more than 200 General Security military vehicles from Afrin, Idlib, and Azaz - equipped with medium weapons - entered Shiye, an area under Amshat’s control.
"When the security forces entered the town, they demanded that Amshat button men hand over their bases, but Saif Jassim, Abu Amsha’s brother, refused and confronted them, which led to the outbreak of fighting," he said.

The festivities intensified throughout the evening before calming by around midnight after negotiations between the two sides. A temporary deal was reached, giving Amshat one week to leave the area.

"It was decided that the Amshat group would leave... and they were given a one-week deadline to evacuate Shiye," Shekho noted.

After Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS) overthrew the Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
regime and dissolved to form the new Syrian government, the group moved to consolidate full control over Syrian territory. In January, the Amshat faction demanded large sums of money from Kurds returning to Afrin in order to allow them back to their areas, as Arab settlers were leaving.

Syria’s new authorities have also faced backlash, primarily from the Kurds, for granting military positions to militia leaders complicit in serious human rights abuses, such as Abu Amsha.

Mustafa Shekho, a civil activist and Shiye resident, told Rudaw that there was information that Abu Amsha himself had come to the town and that his brother Saif Jassim was to be arrested, "but the arrest has not been confirmed."

"Within a week to ten days, no gunman except [General] Security forces will remain in Shiye," he added.

However,
Switzerland makes more than cheese...
Ahmed Hassan, head of the Kurdish National Council (ENKS/KNC) in Afrin, said that a large security convoy entered Shiye on Sunday but that "those new forces... have withdrawn and returned. Now only those [state] security forces that were previously stationed in Shiye remain."

"The Amshat group is still in the Shiye area and has not withdrawn," Hassan explained, adding that a meeting between the two sides was held, but the outcomes remain unclear.

The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and structure....
member, but not the most reliable...

seized the area in 2018 during Operation Olive Branch, ousting the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Afrin was then handed over to Ottoman Turkish-backed factions, including the Suleiman Shah Brigade, which rights groups say have since acted with impunity.

In 2023, the US Treasury accused the Suleiman Shah Brigade of systematically targeting Kurds in Afrin through harassment, abduction, and extortion, forcing residents to abandon homes or pay ransoms to recover family members or property.

International watchdogs such as Amnesty International and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) documented similar abuses as early as 2018, including extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, kidnappings, looting of agricultural crops, and other violations.
Posted by trailing wife 2025-08-27 00:00|| || Front Page|| ||Comments [40 views ]  Top
 File under: Ottoman Proxies 

10:55 Elmomoter Mussolini9149
10:52 Bobby
10:52 Elmomoter Mussolini9149
10:44 trailing wife
10:34 trailing wife
10:13 Lord Garth
09:36 Besoeker
09:33 Besoeker
09:29 Skidmark
09:26 Skidmark
09:26 Besoeker
09:23 3dc
09:22 Skidmark
09:20 Besoeker
09:20 SteveS
09:19 Skidmark
09:19 3dc
09:18 Skidmark
09:16 Skidmark
09:16 Besoeker
09:14 3dc
09:12 3dc
09:10 trailing wife
09:06 3dc









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com