Syria appoints U.S.-sanctioned figure to lead military division
DAMASCUS, Syria (North Press) – The Ministry of Defense of the Syrian transitional government appointed on Monday Ahmad al-Hayes, known as “Abu Hatem Shaqra”—a figure sanctioned by the United States—as commander of the 86th Division operating in Deir ez-Zor, Hasakah, and Raqqa.
Abu Hatem Shaqra previously served as the leader of the Liberation and Construction Movement, a core component of the Turkish-backed First Legion within the Syrian National Army (SNA).
Al-Hayes has been under U.S. sanctions since 2021 for his involvement in the killing of Kurdish politician Hevrin Khalaf, serious human rights violations, and connections to the Islamic State (ISIS).
Khalaf, a Kurdish female engineer from the city of Derik (al-Malikiyah) in far northeast Syria, was an active Syrian Kurdish politician. She was serving as Secretary-General of Future Syria Party.
On Oct. 12, 2019, while heading from Hasakah to Raqqa, militants of Ahrar al-Sharqiya, a Turkish-backed faction led by al-Hayes, stopped Khalaf’s car and shot her and her driver to death.
At the time of his blacklisting, the U.S. Treasury Department accused al-Hayes of overseeing human rights abuses carried out by the Ahrar al-Sharqiya faction, including extrajudicial killings at a prison in Aleppo in 2018.
He was also implicated in the trafficking of Yazidi women and children and in recruiting former ISIS members into his ranks. Several former ISIS officials pledged allegiance to al-Hayes and assisted in his group’s extortion and ransom operations, according to the U.S. Treasury.