From Afrin to Hama: U.S. Sanctioned Commander Abu Amsha Consolidates Power in Syria

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has sounded the alarm over the growing influence of former militia commanders who have re-emerged as powerful military and political figures within Syria’s reshaped power structure. Among them is the controversial figure Mohammed Hussein al-Jassem, widely known as “Abu Amsha,” whose rise from a militia leader in Afrin to commander of the 25th Division in Hama has reignited fears of renewed militia dominance and the erosion of civilian governance.

In a statement to Kurdistan24, Rami Abdulrahman Director of the Observatory, said that Abu Amsha’s forces now operate extensively across Hama’s countryside, engaging in illicit arms trading near military training sites by purchasing ammunition from recruits and storing it in private rest houses and farmlands without oversight or accountability. The report also notes that these groups have carried out assaults on predominantly Alawite villages, seizing lands and property by force, and imposing tribal-based administrative systems that reflect Abu Amsha’s own power base.

Abu Amsha’s ascent reflects a broader pattern of the militarization of governance and the entrenchment of militia networks across northern Syria. Originally from the village of Jouzeh in Hama’s countryside, he worked as a heavy machinery driver before joining the armed opposition at the outbreak of the Syrian conflict. Over time, he built an extensive web of economic and military patronage that enabled him to rise to prominence as the commander of the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade, one of the Ankara-backed factions that occupied Afrin in 2018.

In March 2025, the European Union sanctioned both Abu Amsha and his faction, citing their involvement in “grave human rights violations,” including extrajudicial killings and violent acts against civilians in coastal and northern Syria, particularly targeting members of the Alawite community. The EU’s decision echoed earlier sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department in August 2023 against the Sultan Suleiman Shah and Hamza Divisions for their participation in looting, kidnapping, and torture in Afrin.

Abdulrahman confirmed that, despite these sanctions, Abu Amsha has continued to consolidate influence within the transitional military establishment. Thousands of fighters loyal to him, many from his clan and native region, are now positioned within the Ministry of Defense, strengthening his role as a local powerbroker with growing sway over central military and administrative decisions.

While Abu Amsha’s influence expands in Hama, his networks remain active in Afrin—where the same factions continue to perpetrate systematic abuses against the Kurdish population. A recent Kurdistan24 English investigative report titled “The Economic Committee in Afrin: Bureaucracy or a Tool to Legitimize Looting?” exposed how the so-called Economic Committee has evolved into a mechanism for legitimizing land and property confiscation under the guise of administrative regulation.

The report documented how Kurdish residents returning to Afrin are subjected to impossible bureaucratic demands to reclaim their homes and lands, forcing them to provide multiple layers of ownership proof that are nearly impossible to obtain after years of displacement. In practice, those unable to produce full documentation are compelled to surrender up to half of their agricultural yields—particularly olives—to the Committee.

Interviews conducted by Kurdistan24 revealed that these procedures are being exploited by faction-linked officials, many of them former militia leaders associated with Abu Amsha’s network. Kurdish residents and local officials described widespread extortion, forced taxation, and arbitrary property seizures carried out under the pretext of “legal oversight.”

Ahmed Hassan, head of the Kurdish National Council in Afrin, told Kurdistan24 that the Committee “is under the control of the same factions that ruled Afrin in 2018.” He explained that “they take half of the olive harvest, impose arbitrary taxes, and threaten residents who attempt to reclaim their property.”

Kurdish parliamentarian Mohammed Seydo echoed these concerns, condemning the continuing violations: “What is happening in Afrin is painful and unacceptable. Farmers are deprived of their rights and livelihoods under flimsy pretexts, while oversight and accountability are absent.”

The case of Abu Amsha exemplifies the transformation of Syria’s post-war landscape into a patchwork of factional control, where commanders once accused of looting and abuses now hold formal military ranks. While the Observatory’s latest report highlights Hama as a new theater for his influence, Afrin continues to bear the scars of the same networks’ operations—fueled by impunity, corruption, and the absence of state oversight.