This week in northern Syria

#85: August 22nd - September 20th

This edition covers the events of the month up through September 20th with the exception of news stories related to the Islamic State-SDF conflict as well as anti-SDF Turkish drone strikes, which will be covered in upcoming posts. The newsletter will return to its regular weekly schedule later this week. My apologies for the delay and thank you to all the new subscribers.

• 08/22/24: Turkey and Russia announced the resumption of joint patrols through SDF-controlled northeastern Syria. The patrols began in late 2019 as part of the Turkish-Russian agreement which froze Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring against the SDF in northern al-Raqqah and al-Hasakah at its current front lines. These were stopped in early October 2023 in conjunction with the escalation of Turkey’s air campaign targeting the SDF and key infrastructure sites in the region. Typically the joint patrols consist of several APCs from both militaries, the Russians coming from outposts in the region and the Turks crossing through gates in the Turkish border wall. As it is unlikely that the patrols provide Turkey with any intelligence not available via aerial surveillance and humint they appear to be more symbolic than anything else. A female demonstrator was reportedly run over by a Russian military vehicle the following week while protesting a joint patrol in al-Mu‘abbadah/Girkê Legê in northeastern al-Hasakah. Russian and Turkish forces carried out two additional joint patrols in the Kobanî countryside in early September.

  

  A joint patrol passing through the Kobanî countryside on Sep 9th

• 08/24/24: The Turkish military and the Syrian Interim Government celebrated the eighth anniversary of Operation Euphrates Shield, Turkey’s first major cross-border operation into Syria. Euphrates Shield marked a key turning point within the Syrian civil war which saw:

  • Turkey become essentially the sole sponsor of the Syrian opposition (with the financial support of its ally Qatar) as the West, Saudi, and Jordan washed their hands of regime change efforts

  • the corralling of most of the non-jihadi opposition into what would become the Syrian National Army (founded in late 2017) which, following the freezing of regime/opposition conflict through Turkish-Russian negotiation, came to serve as the guardians of newly carved out Turkish buffer zones along the border and foot soldiers in Turkey’s war against the SDF (and Cyrenaica’s Gen. Haftar and Karabakh’s Armenians)

• 08/26/24: Journalist Ahmad al-Barhou published a photo to Facebook showing timber being sold at a stand on Afrin city’s western Mazout street, undoubtedly the result of SNA-run logging operations in the region. New video and images of logging in the region circulated the following week.

  

  A timber market on Afrin’s Mazout street

• 08/26/24: The SNA Military Police arrested photojournalist Bakr al-Qasim and his wife Nabihah al-Taha in the city of al-Bab on unknown charges, reportedly at the behest of Turkish intelligence. Al-Taha was released soon after while al-Qasim was held for another week at the al-Ra‘i prison, the center of the SIG judicial system. Initially he was rumored to have been held at the Hawar Kilis Military Crossing, in a prison run by Furqat al-Sultan Murad and overseen by Turkish Intelligence that was highlighted in a recent Syria Direct article. Al-Qasim’s work regularly appears in the international press.

• 08/27/24: A suicide drone seemingly malfunctioned and crashed in SDF-controlled northwestern Deir ez-Zour. It was presumably launched by ‘Resistance’ branded militias in regime-controlled Deir ez-Zour with the intended target being a US base in the area. While such attacks largely ceased in February 2024 several have been reported in the past two months.

• 08/31/24: The SDF and al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah exchanged a captured SNA fighter for the body of an SDF fighter killed in front line clashes at the ‘Aoun al-Dadat crossing between Jarabulus and Manbij. Conflicting reports have emerged regarding both the individuals swapped. The SDF reported that the deceased fighter belonged to the Manbij Military Council while opposition media claimed he was killed in clashes on the ‘Ablah axis, where the MMC is not active and all attacks are claimed by Hêzên Rizgariya Efrînê (HRE), which is not officially part of the SDF. Meanwhile the captured SNA fighter was identified as a Muhammad Da‘boul, reportedly of the SNA’s 2nd Legion, who according to opposition media accounts was captured by the SDF in 2019 during Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring. The same man was interviewed in a 2020 segment published by Saudi state-owned news agency al-Arabiya in which he was billed as a Syrian mercenary captured in Libya by Libyan National Army. Following his recent release Da‘boul told Enab Baladi that the 2020 interview was coerced out of him while in SDF prison. Meanwhile the SDF statement on the transfer acknowledges that its the same individual allegedly captured in Libya but says that they captured him in 2020 in the western Tell Abyad countryside after his alleged Libyan captivity.

  

  Muhammad Da‘boul: 2024 following his release by the SDF (left), 2020 allegedly in captivity in Libya (right)

• 09/01/24: Taxi and bus drivers in al-Hasakah city went on strike in protest of a reduction in fuel allocation by the Autonomous Administration from 25 liters per day to 25 liters every four days due to ongoing fuel shortages. Two weeks later the DAANES announced a new allocation policy reportedly granting drivers 60 liters a week in addition to an extra “liter for every 8 kilometers traveled by vehicles out the cities.”

• 09/02/24: SNA coalition al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah published a video showing its “Air Reconnaissance Units” attacking SDF positions in al-Shahba’ with grenades dropped from a recreational drone. The group published a similar video of drone attacks (geolocations here) the following week. On September 4th al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah published another video detailing its “Air Reconnaissance Squadrons.” While HRE has used similar grenade equipped drones against the SNA and Turkish forces in the past, this the first instance of the SNA utilizing the technology in combat. Meanwhile Furqat al-Sultan Murad reportedly carried out training exercises with loitering munitions last month.

  

  al-Quwwah al-Mustrarikah targeting an SDF position west of ‘Aqibah (location)

• 09/04/24: Al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah announced that it was suspending its cooperation with the Syrian Interim Government while demanding the Syrian National Coalition hold a vote of no confidence for SIG president ‘Abd al-Rahman Mustafa. This was billed as a response to Mustafa’s behavior at a meeting between Turkish officials and representatives of Turkish-supported Syrian opposition institutions held in Gaziantep the day prior. This appears to have been aimed at smoothing over ongoing tensions between the various actors and their supposed constituents, relating to Turkey’s ongoing negotiations with the Syrian regime (and the continuing Abu al-Zindin crossing controversy). According to Shamiyah’s statement Mustafa verbally attacked the group, along with the ‘eastern’ factions and the civilian protest movement in the Shamiyah-controlled city of A‘zaz, accusing them of sabotaging the SIG. As has been the case in many of the intra-opposition disputes of recent years this latest spat highlights al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah relative power and autonomy in comparison to the opposition factions and institutions more closely aligned with (and reliant on) Turkey. In unrelated Shamiyah news, the contingent of former Ahrar al-Sham fighters led by ‘Alaa’ Faham that joined the faction in 2021 reportedly left in mid-August.

• 09/07/24: Ibrahim Hamdan was sworn in as the commander of the Manbij Military Council at a meeting of the Manbij province People’s Assembly. Hamdan has been present within the MMC leadership for years and was appointed deputy commander in February of this year. The meeting also saw the swearing in of new heads of the local branches of the Asayish, the Community Protection Forces, the Wounded and PoW Commision, and the Martyrs’ Families Commission.

  

  MMC commander Ibrahim Hamdan

• 09/07/24: HRE carried out an attack on SNA positions on the Maryamin/Enab front line in southeastern Afrin, resulting in the deaths of five fighters affiliated with SNA coalition al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah. The SNA responded with a series of attacks targeting HRE positions in al-Shahba’, including a Grad rocket barrage strangely fired from a Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah base in the Sheikh al-Hadid subdistrict, approximately 30km west of SDF-held territory. An HRE fighter and a civilian man were reportedly killed the same day however the group didn’t specify where exactly or how. Two days later al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah published a video of a TOW strike targeting what it claimed to be an SDF headquarters in the front line village of Tanab.

  

  The distance between the Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah Grad launch location and the closest SDF-controlled territory

• 09/07/24: The Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria (PYDKS or Yekîtî ya Dêmokrat) reported that members of the PKK/PYD-aligned Revolutionary Youth Movement (Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger) attacked a DAANES-licensed event the party put on for outstanding students in the SDF-controlled al-Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood of Aleppo city. The PYDKS positions itself between the ENKS and PYD with regard to intra-Kurdish politics and was in fact expelled from the ENKS in 2014 for perceived closeness to the PYD (see a brief write up of the party approximately halfway down the page here), meaning it has greater leeway within the DAANES. Therefore this incident is slightly out of the ordinary as the Revolutionary Youth typically targets the offices and events of the ENKS-affiliated parties.

  

  The hall that hosted the ceremony following the attack

• 09/09/24: The ENKS reported that the DAANES released five party members from Dêrik and ‘Amude after several months of detention. The coalition also reported that six addition members arrested between March and July 2024 remain in jail.

• 09/11/24: For the first time since the Islamic State was defeated in eastern Aleppo in 2017, the city of al-Bab began to receive drinking water pumped from the ‘Ain al-Bayda station located approximately 15km in regime-controlled territory. This cross-line agreement was facilitated by UNICEF and is still in an experimental phase.

• 09/12/24: Turkish Minister of Economy and Trade Ömer Bolat visited the newly opened Ceylanpınar Customs Gate, located at the crossing with Ras al-‘Ain/Serê Kaniyê. The crossing was expanded by the Turkish government to accommodate increased trade with (opposition-controlled) Syria, which according to Bolat now amounts to a trade volume of $2.4 billion including $2 billion in Turkish exports. For more on the various crossings see Enab Baladi’s related report (though the map falsely shows the ‘Olive Branch’ crossing in northwestern rather than southwestern Afrin).

• 09/14/24: Delegations from UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross reportedly visited the ‘Alouk water station in SNA-controlled northwestern Hasakah to examine the possibility of running the station off generators. The station, which feeds large parts of SDF-controlled northeastern Syria, has been shut on and off repeatedly since the Turkish invasion of the region in 2019 due to disputes over service and the provision of electricity from SDF areas, causing major water shortages. Electricity provision is now complicated by Turkish attacks on the DAANES-operated grid.

• 09/15/24: Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah temporarily besieged the town of Kaxrê/Yakhour in Afrin’s Ma‘batli subdistrict Afrin after reportedly beating a number of local Kurdish women demonstrating against the royalties extorted by the group from the region’s olive farmers. The incident was preceded by farmers refusing to pay the $8 per tree tax imposed by the faction under threat of confiscation, leading the faction to reportedly arrest at least five men held at a ransom of $11,000. According to SyriaTV 20 farmers were detained at a local school building after refusal to pay. Reports differ as to whether the tax is required of all farmers or specifically of those tending to absentee relatives’ orchards. Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah reportedly managed to cut off the internet in the area during the barricading of the town, eventually ended by the arrival of the SNA Military Police. Both the ENKS and the Syrian Islamic Council condemned the beatings, arrests, and extortion, while Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah claimed its deployment to the town was related to a dispute between a Kurdish family and an IDP Arab family. In its statement the ENKS, which is a member of the opposition’s Syrian National Council, listed other examples of extortion carried out by the SNA against the region’s native Kurdish population including: charging $5,000 for the restoration of homes and lands seized by militants, $1,500 for wells, and $2,000 for olive presses. Both Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah commander Muhammad Jasim (“Abu ‘Amshah”) and allied Furqat al-Hamzah commander Saif Polat visited Kaxrê several days later, photos of which were published to social media by the SIG Ministry of Defense.

• 09/17/24: The SIG Ministry of Defense published an announcement stating that it was dissolving SNA faction Furqat Suquor al-Shamal, rerouting its fighters and resources into other factions, while replacing its leader Hasan Khayriyah with Deputy Minister of Defense ‘Adnan al-Diyab during the transition period. Several hours later Furqat Suquor al-Shamal responding by announcing its full integration into al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah. This was followed by the military mobilization of Shamiyah’s main rival al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah, a coalition including both Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah and Furqat al-Hamzah, leading to several days of heightened tensions around the town of Kafr Jannah, located at the crossing between the Afrin and Euphrates Shield regions. According to reporting by various outlets Suqour al-Shamal had been under Turkish pressure to join al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah as part of a broader effort to consolidate the SNA under its largest five factions (al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah, al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah, Furqat al-Sultan Murad, Harakat al-Tahrir wa’l-Bina’, and Faylaq al-Sham) and more thoroughly divide the three regions between them. Al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah’s aggressive response to the Suqour al-Shamal announcement is due to its rivalry with al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah, who would gain Suqour al-Shamal’s thousand or so fighters and its bases in northeastern Afrin and at the Hawar Kilis military crossing with Turkey. This would represent a return to Afrin by Shamiyah after being kicked out in late 2022 by what became al-Quwwah al-Mushtarikah with the assistance of HTS and change the situation at Hawar Kilis which features headquarters belonging to Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah, Furqat al-Hamzah, Furqat al-Sultan Murad, Furqat al-Suqour al-Shamal, along with others likely belonging to other 2nd Legion factions. Tension dissipated after several days following demobilization on the part of Shamiyah, however the group refused to turn over Suqour al-Shamal faction leader Hasan Khayriyah over to the Turks, leaving matters unresolved. For more on Furqat Suqour al-Shamal, a faction with roots in Idlib’s Jebel al-Zawiya region that maintains bases in Afrin’s Bulbul region, the Akhtarin region of northern Aleppo, and outside the city of Ras al-‘Ain/Serê Kaniyê, see my brief profile of the group from last year. Meanwhile two small contingents of fighters led by a Suhail Abu Bakr and a Mustafa al-‘Abdo reportedly joined al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah the following day.

  

  al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah commander Abu al-‘Izz Saraqib with Suqour al-Shamal commander Hasan Khayriyah at a Shamiyah base (source)

• 09/18/24: Manbij residents launched a general strike protesting the reported dismissal of teachers by the DAANES over the refusal to teach its curriculum. Unrest related to the curriculum is a yearly occurrence related to two primary grievances: the lack of international accreditation mixed with varying degrees of repression of the accredited regime school system, along with the Apoçi ideological content within the curriculum itself.

• 09/19/24: North Press Agency reported that the ENKS suspended its activity within the SNC in response to the events in Kaxrê/Yakhour, demanding that the council “hold the [Furqat al-Sultan Suleiman Shah] faction accountable, and remove it from the coalition.” The ENKS told the SNC that it would not attend coalition meetings until such violations are stopped.

• 09/20/24: The SDF announced attacks on SNA and Turkish positions in Manbij and along the M4 highway in northeastern Raqqah governorate. Meanwhile al-Jabhah al-Shamiyah reported that its forces shot down three regime or SDF quadcopters along the Mare‘ front lines.

Other

• Nate Schenkkan’s recent article “How Syria Broke Turkey” detailing the effects Turkish Syria policy had on domestic Turkish politics. For more on the topic listen to his discussion with Selim Koru and Nicholas Danforth on the Kültürkampf podcast.

• Syria in Transition’s interview with Syrian Negotiation Commission President Badr Jamous

• Kheder Khaddour and Armenak Tokmajyan’s paper “Borders Without a Nation: Syria, Outside Powers, and Open-Ended Instability”

  

• Syrian Civil Defense reported extinguishing 383 fires in northwestern Syria over the course of August including 167 crop/grassland fires and 48 forest/brush fires.

• The Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre’s map of August 2024 human rights violation

• Syria Direct’s July, August, and September in Review newsletters

• The SDF published a short video detailing its 2017 capture of Qal‘at Ja‘bar, a 12th century Seljuk castle on the banks of the Euphrates that held the tomb of Suleyman Shah until 1973 when it was moved further north due to dam-induced flooding.

  

  Qal‘at Ja‘bar in 1939, three decades prior to the building of the Tabqah dam and the flooding of this portion of this portion of the Euphrates River valley