The sound of automatic gunfire, an all too familiar sound to the people of Turkish-occupied Afrin, rang out again on September 15. Normally associated with infighting amongst the different militia factions that make up Turkey’s “Syrian National Army” proxy force, this instance proved to be quite different.
Women of the village of Kakhra, in western Afrin, organized a peaceful protest against the crimes and human rights violations being regularly committed by the occupying Turkish-backed militants. These include taxes, theft, rape, kidnapping, and murder. The Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade, known also as the al-Amshat militia, for the group’s notorious commander, responded harshly, using gunfire and batons to violently disperse the protest. Approximately 20 villagers were wounded, some critically. The militia reportedly hindered attempts by the injured to receive medical treatment.
Last year, the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade was sanctioned by the United States Treasury for “serious human rights abuses against those residing in the Afrin region of northern Syria.” The group joined Ahrar al-Sharqiya and the Hamza Division as the third militia within the Turkish-backed “Syrian National Army” to be sanctioned by the Treasury Department for human rights violations.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry stated that torture was used extensively in militia-run detention centers in Turkish-occupied Syria.
Despite numerous reports and US sanctions, the militias of Turkish-occupied Syria have continued to violate international law and carry out human rights violations against the people of the region, under the protection of Turkey.
The Afrin region of Syria has been occupied by Turkey for over six years, since the end of the Turkish military’s “Operation Olive Branch” in March 2018. In that time, Afrin has seen hundreds of thousands of its Kurdish-majority population displaced, being replaced by Syrians displaced from other regions of the country, in what has been referred to as “demographic change” and “ethnic cleansing” by the local population.