Security

Factional infighting continues between Turkish-backed groups in northern Aleppo

“Suleiman Shah faction waged a violent attack with the support of Hayyat Tahrir Al-Sham on the positions of Al-Jabha Al-Shamiyyah."

Wladimir van Wilgenburg 2022/10/12 14:28

Syrian National Army (SNA) forces in northern Syria (Photo: The Unified Command Room/Twitter).

Syria SNA Afrin Bab

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) war monitor reports that violent factional infighting continues between Turkish-backed groups in the countryside of Aleppo.

According to Kurdistan 24 sources, clashes continue to place in areas in Afrin between the Levant Front, also known in Arabic as Jabhat al-Shamiyah, and the Hamza Faction and the Sulaiman Shah group.

So far, one fighter was killed, and three people were injured.

SOHR also reported that the “Suleiman Shah faction waged a violent attack with the support of Hayyat Tahrir Al-Sham on the positions of Al-Jabha Al-Shamiyyah and its proxy factions in the villages of Maabatli district in Afrin countryside.”

The clashes erupted and spread to Afrin after Muhammad Abdullatif, known as Abu Ghannoum, a Syrian opposition activist was assasinated on Friday in Syria’s al-Bab. His pregnant wife was also killed in the attack.

He was allegedly killed by a member of the Hamza faction led by Saif Abu Bakr, the Syrian Observer reports. After the death, clashes erupted between Turkish-backed armed factions in northern Aleppo.

Turkish-controlled areas have also been plagued by regular infighting between groups aligned with Turkey and indiscriminate bombings and assasinations that have killed civilians.

Turkish-backed armed groups have been accused of large-scale human rights abuses in areas they control.

SOHR also reported that activists have reported that the fates of several prisoners of Al-Zira’a prison in Al-Bab city remains unknown that was taken from the Hamza Division by the Jabhat al-Shamiyah group, including three Kurdish civilians.

There were also reports by North Press that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group formerly known as al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, took villages near Afrin.

"It's become increasingly obvious that no matter how robust the SNA/TSK (Turkish army) mechanisms for stopping intra-SNA infighting are now, the mechanisms for preventing these episodes in the first place are barebones to nonexistent. After so many years, nearly zero progress has been made," Syria analyst Trenton Schoenborn wrote on Twitter.