“These fighters are being integrated into Syria’s Armed Forces, with their commanders appointed to key government and military positions, despite their past involvement in serious abuses,” HRW said, calling on the transitional government in Damascus to “end and investigate ongoing abused and exclude those with records of abuse from the Syrian security forces.”
The report cited Syrian for Truth and Justice (STJ) - a local human rights organization - which last month documented dozens of arrests by SNA factions in January and February. Despite the removal of most SNA checkpoints in the vicinity of the Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria, “hundreds remain detained in SNA-run, Turkish-supervised prisons.”
The watchdog also cited a December attack by fighters from the SNA’s notorious Suleiman Shah Brigade, who allegedly took control of a village in Aleppo province, beat residents, stole personal belongings, and arrested seven men “under the pretext of searching for weapons.” Two of the men “remained in detention” as of early May, according to the HRW.
It also referred to earlier reports that detail “abductions, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, including of children, sexual violence, and torture by the various factions of the SNA, the Military Police, a force established to curb such abuses, and members of the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish intelligence agencies.”
“The primary targets were Kurds and those linked to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Turkiye considers part of the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK], which announced its dissolution on May 12,” HRW said.
“Türkiye, which still oversees former SNA factions and continues to provide weapons, salaries, training, and logistical support to these factions, also bears responsibility for their abuses and potential war crimes,” it added.
In 2018, Turkey and its allied Syrian militias seized control of Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in Rojava. Thousands of Kurds fled, with many settling in the nearby Shahba region. International organizations have recorded widespread violations in Afrin since then, including killings, kidnappings, looting of crops, and extortion of Kurdish farmers.
In December, the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a blistering offensive from their stronghold of Idlib in northwest Syria and marched on Damascus, overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime. HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa set up a transitional government and appointed himself as interim president.
But Syria’s new authorities have faced backlash, particularly from the Kurds, for appointing militia leaders complicit in serious human rights abuses, including Ahmad al-Hayes, better known as Abu Hatem Shaqra, the former leader of the SNA’s Ahrar al-Sharqiya, and Mohammad Hussein al-Jassim (Abu Amsha), the notorious commander of the Suleiman Shah Brigade.
In 2021, the US sanctioned Hayes, accusing him of serious human rights violations, including trafficking Yazidi women and children, and connections with the Islamic State (ISIS). He is also accused by Syrian Kurds of killing popular Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf during Turkey’s 2019 military offensive against the Kurdish-led SDF in northern Syria.
Washington has also sanctioned Abu Amsha for “serious human rights abuses” in the Afrin region and for ordering his militants to “forcibly displace Kurdish residents and seize their property” in northern Syria.
“The fall of Assad’s abusive government has meant decades of atrocities by that government have come to an end,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “But Syrian National Army factions are continuing to detain, extort, and torture residents with impunity.”
Notably, Damascus has also faced criticism over a deadly crackdown in the Alawite-majority coastal areas, where at least 1,500 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
In late April, over 100 were also killed in southern Syria’s Druze-majority areas after sectarian violence erupted following a fake audio clip insulting the Prophet Muhammad, initially blamed on a Druze cleric.
Sharaa met with locals in Afrin in February and pledged to remove armed groups and end abuses. In March, he signed a landmark agreement with SDF chief Mazloum Abdi to integrate the SDF into Syria’s state institutions, declare a nationwide ceasefire, and facilitate the return of displaced Syrians under government protection.
The deal resulted in a prisoner swap and a joint security arrangement in Kurdish-majority neighborhoods north of Aleppo previously held by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) - the SDF’s backbone.
Ahmed Hassan, head of Afrin’s council of the Kurdish National Council (ENKS), told Rudaw in March that the number of Kurds returning to Afrin has significantly increased since the deal, with some Arab settlers reportedly leaving the city.
However, Nadine Maenza, president of the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Secretariat and former chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), told Rudaw in April that many displaced Kurds and Yazidis are still afraid to return due to militia presence.
“The Syrian transitional government should urgently unify its military under an accountable command with civilian oversight and ensure adherence to international human rights standards. It should take steps to prevent further abuses against Kurdish and other residents in northern Syria, ensure the release of all arbitrarily detained people, and investigate past abuses with fair legal proceedings,” HRW said, also calling on Ankara to suspend its support to abusive SNA commanders and factions and provide reparations to victims.
The human rights watchdog also called on the international community to provide assistance to ensure that civilians are protected under the new transitional authorities, “including supporting an independent judiciary to ensure lawful detention and treatment of detainees.”
“As Syria’s transitional government is integrating into its ranks SNA factions and other armed groups, it must exclude those in the SNA that are responsible for abuses and hold them accountable,” Coogle said. “If it doesn’t do so, the Syrian people will not be able to trust their armed forces and will be vulnerable to yet more abuse.”
