IDPs, armed faction clash in Syria’s Afrin
AFRIN, Syria (North Press) – On Friday night, armed clashes erupted in the town of Jindires in the west of Afrin, northwest Syria, between displaced people and a Turkish-backed armed faction as members of the latter assaulted on the displaced.
Militants of Sultan Suleiman Shah (al-Amshat) faction assaulted on young men from the town of Ainjara, west of the city of Aleppo. As a result, the IDPs of Aijara, who are living in Jindires, gathered and clashed with the faction’s militants, eyewitnesses told North Press.
Afrin has been under the occupation of Turkey and the SNA factions since 2018 following a military operation dubbed “Olive Branch” against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) under the pretext of preserving Turkey’s national security.
The operation caused the displacement of about 300,000 of the original inhabitants of the Kurds of Afrin who have been taking shelter in 42 villages and five camps in Aleppo northern countryside, locally known as Shahba region, since then.
They said that intermittent clashes broke out between the two parties, where they used machine guns, without any reports on casualties.
The Ainjara IDPs demanded al-Amshat to hand over those who assaulted their relatives, and the latter agreed for fear of more escalation, according to the eyewitnesses.
On August 17, the US Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Sultan Suleiman Shah Division (al-Amshat), Hamza Division, al-Amshat leader Muhammad Hussein al-Jassem (Abu Amsha), his younger brother Walid Hussein al-Jassem, Hamza leader Saif Abu Bakr, and the Istanbul-headquartered al-Safir Oto, a car dealership owned by Abu Amsha, for committing “serious human rights abuses” against the people of Afrin, mainly the Kurds.
On March 20, militants of Ahrar al-Sharqiya, a faction affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), killed five Kurds and wounded others in Jindires for celebrating Newroz, a Kurdish national celebration.
The incident was followed by local and international angry reactions, calling for holding perpetrators accountable for the incident and removing the injustice in areas under the SNA factions’ control and demilitarize the region (northwestern Syria).
Following the incident, thousands of the people of Jindires and nearby villages took to streets, demanding perpetrators be held accountable and the expulsion of SNA factions from the region.