What do we know about the "Fajr al-Hurriya" mercenaries that attack areas in NE, Syria?

After dictating orders from the Turkish occupation state, its mercenaries launched an operation called "Dawn of Freedom" on November 30, 2024, with the aim of occupying areas of the North and East Syria region, and seizing the opportunity to commit more crimes against the peoples of the region.

Under this operation, the Turkish occupation state and its mercenaries occupied the rest of the Afrin and al-Shahba cantons on December 1, and the city of Manbij on December 10 of last year, so that the Turkish occupation forces and their mercenary groups headed to control the Tishrin Dam and the Qaraqozak Bridge, to encounter a heroic resistance by the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Women's Protection Units for about 25 days.

So who are these mercenaries and where did they come from with their various names? In this report, we shed light on the names and leaders of the most prominent mercenary groups affiliated with the Turkish occupation, and part of the crimes they committed against the components of the Syrian people and the region.

Mercenaries of the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement:

The so-called "Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement" was founded on November 1, 2011. It is a mercenary faction affiliated with the Turkish occupation army, and participated in the attack on the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood from 2012 until 2016, committing many crimes against civilians.

Many leaders of this mercenary faction indicate that the ideological orientations are based on "moderate Islam", but its actions and deeds are based on ethnic, sectarian, Salafist orientations, most notably the slaughter of a Palestinian child on July 19, 2016 in the al-Sha'ar neighborhood in the city of Aleppo.

Following this incident, the United States of America ended the "Timber Sycamore" program, which supported and financed mercenary factions affiliated with Turkey, which it financed through the Ministry of Transportation, according to many press reports, due to its commission of war crimes against the Syrians.

The "Zenki" mercenaries were also classified as terrorist groups in the Vienna Peace Talks in 2015 when Jordan was tasked with drafting a list to classify terrorist groups.

According to Amnesty International, the mercenaries of the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, along with the mercenaries of the "16th Division, the Levant Front, and Ahrar al-Sham" were involved in kidnapping and torturing journalists and humanitarian aid workers in the areas they controlled in Aleppo during 2014 and 2015, and were also accused of throwing all those who opposed them from the roofs of houses to take revenge on them and spread terror among the rest of the circles.

The "Nour al-Din al-Zenki" mercenaries announced their "dissolution" in 2019 after violent battles with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, to join the mercenaries of the Faylaq al-Majd under a new name, the "Third Brigade".

Faylaq al-Majd Mercenaries:

The mercenary faction was founded by the Turkish intelligence services in 2017, and the first attack in which it participated was in 2018 alongside the Turkish occupation army in the occupation of Afrin. Most of the mercenary faction's participation was targeting areas in the North and East of Syria region, without recording any real participation in the battles that took place against the collapsed "Ba'ath" regime, which confirms the conflict between the mercenaries' internal goals and the declared ones, whose draft priorities indicate "fighting the Assad regime."

Although the mercenary faction is relatively newly formed compared to the rest, its mercenary leader, "Yasser Abdul Rahim," has a long history of violations against the Syrian people, especially the Kurds, which is why he received praise from the President of the Turkish occupation state, Erdogan.

Abdul Rahim from the village of Termanin in Idlib city and has video recordings of when he was a leader in the Faylaq al-Sham mercenaries, in which he bombed civilians in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in Aleppo in 2015-2016 before leading the Faylaq al-Majd mercenaries, which resulted in the martyrdom of more than 350 civilians over the course of two years.

He is one of the main suspects in using chemical weapons three times in a row in the bombing of the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in 2016.

He also has a photo of himself smiling and holding the Turkish flag on his shoulder after his faction's mercenaries captured the fighter in the Women's Protection Units, Çiçek Kobani, in 2019, threatening to slaughter her.

The fighter, Çiçek, participated in the Dignity Resistance before being captured after being injured in the village of al-Mashrafah. In addition to abusing prisoners of war, Abdul Rahim's name has also been linked to other crimes, including the slaughter of a Palestinian child in Aleppo and the mutilation of the bodies of martyred fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The mercenaries of the Faylaq al-Majd are mainly stationed in the occupied city of Girê Spî, and are involved in hundreds, even thousands, of demographic change operations, kidnappings, and abuses against the indigenous population in the occupied areas. In addition to its not-so-hidden participation in sending Syrian fighters as mercenaries to Libya and Niger in implementation of the orders of the Turkish occupation army.

Levant Corps Mercenaries:

It is Erdogan's favorite mercenary faction, so much so that he was given the title of "agent", as a result of its participation in all military operations launched by the Turkish occupation army since 2016, which paved the way for its occupation of parts of Syrian territory.

In addition to its participation in the battles in Libya with a number of thousands of mercenaries, alongside the "Government of National Accord" supported by the Turkish occupation army in the face of a parallel government supported by Russia, in addition to Erdogan's reliance on them to participate in the Karabakh battles alongside Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia.

In addition to its involvement in imprisoning and torturing Syrians who oppose the presence of the Turkish occupation army on Syrian territory, especially in the occupied city of Afrin.

This mercenary faction was founded in March 2014, and formed part of the so-called “Jaysh al-Fatah” alliance with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and took control of the entire Idlib province in the summer of 2015, before the mercenaries of the “Sham Corps” later fought against “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” over areas of control in Idlib province and some neighboring areas at the time.

Levant Front mercenaries:

Established in 2014 in Aleppo, they participated in the attack on the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods, the occupation of the city of Afrin and the areas of al-Shahba, and the killing and wounding of thousands of civilians in those areas.

The current leader of the Levant Front mercenaries, Azzam Gharib (Abu al-Ezz Saraqib), is responsible for supervising the work of Aleppo Governorate, and he is accused of looting the funds of the mercenary faction that he controls, according to local sources.

In 2021, it joined the so-called Third Corps of the "National Army" mercenaries, which included 5 mercenary factions, the most prominent of which are the mercenaries of the "Islamic Front", which aims to build a "righteous Islamic state" according to its founding statement in 2013.

The mercenaries of the Levant Front also include in its formations, in addition to the mercenaries of the Islamic Front, mercenary factions that collapsed and dissolved themselves as the "Mujahideen Army Mercenaries" and part of the "Nour al-Din al-Zenki Brigades" mercenaries who refused to join the mercenaries of the Glory Corps, and the remnants of other small groups such as the mercenaries of the "Fastaqim Kama Umirt" gathering, whose influence has diminished due to internal conflicts based on personal interests and the distribution of thefts.

Al-Amshat and Al-Hamzat Mercenaries "Joint Force"

The names of this gang of mercenaries "Al-Amshat" have changed more than once since its founding in 2011, according to the different sources of its funding, starting with the "Line of Fire Group" and ending with its adoption of the name "Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade", named after the founding grandfather of the Ottoman Empire in 2016 after linking it to Turkish intelligence, to become the most loyal faction to the Turkish occupation, and diverting the course of its goals from attacking the Syrian regime to attack the Kurdish areas.

Some reports confirm that Turkish intelligence elements were besieged in the headquarters of the "Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade" mercenaries in the Al-Haidariya neighborhood in the city of Aleppo in the fall of 2016, while the Ba'ath regime imposed a siege on the eastern neighborhoods of the city in the same year.

Despite promoting itself as a "Turkmen faction" because its leader and the majority of its members from the Turkmen component in Syria, the truth is that they are not.

The mercenary "Abu Amsha", the leader of the faction, is from the Arab Bedouin tribes and not Turkmen. He from the village of Josa, which is affiliated with the Hayalin area in the northern Hama countryside. He was born in 1987 and worked as a driver of agricultural machinery, including tractors and harvesters, before the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, turning into one of the biggest butchers against the Syrian people, serving Turkish agendas.

As for Hamzat, or what is called the "Hamza Division", it is led by the mercenary "Saif Bulad Abu Bakr" and was established after the merger of a number of mercenary groups under Turkish orders and support in 2016 in the city of Mare'.

The Hamzat mercenaries, who directly participated in the Turkish plans to displace the Kurds from their areas to change their demographics, were accused. One of the most prominent topics that shed light on the mercenary faction was the issue of kidnapping Kurdish women and placing them in secret prisons, which was discovered by chance in 2020 by people who went out to demonstrate against the practices of the mercenaries.

The name of "Abu Bakr", the leader of the mercenaries, was also linked to the assassination of the media activist, Muhammad Abdul Latif (Abu Ghanem) and his pregnant wife in the city of al-Bab in the northern countryside of Aleppo, in 2022.

In addition to the thousands of daily crimes committed against the Syrian people, especially in Afrin, on an almost daily basis, including killing, kidnapping, rape, theft, and cutting down trees, the United States of America included the mercenaries of al-Hamzat and al-Amshat on the US Treasury Department's sanctions list in 2023.

The leaders of the two mercenary factions also have a long record of close cooperation with the state of Bakhchili, the head of the fascist Turkish "Nationalist Movement" party and the first mafia man in Turkey, Alaeddin Cakici, who is known for his closeness to the "Nationalist Movement" party.

While many reports confirmed the presence of mercenaries affiliated with the terrorist Grey Wolves movement (the military wing of the Nationalist Movement Party), fighting within the mercenaries of al-Amshat and al-Hamzat, in the Tishreen Dam and Qaraqozak Bridge axes after inflicting heavy losses on their ranks at the hands of the fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The mercenaries of the two factions announced under the name of the "Joint Force" their withdrawal from the military bloc affiliated with the so-called "Syrian National Coalition" days ago after meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa, without clarifying the reasons, with many observers indicating the receipt of Turkish instructions in this regard.

Sultan Murad Brigade mercenaries:

Many reports indicated that Turkish intelligence established it in mid-2012, notably taking the name of Sultan Murad, who is one of the most important and dangerous sultans of the Ottoman Empire and the first to take the title of Sultan.

It includes in its ranks many Turkish soldiers and Turkish intelligence elements who wear the "division" military uniform, move around in its vehicles, and bring Turkish military reinforcements into the occupied Syrian cities through convoys that raise the flags of the (Sultan Murad) mercenaries, in addition to the Turkish flag.

While its formations include many mercenaries who directly report to Turkish intelligence, most notably the "Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih Brigade, the Martyr Zaki Turkmani Brigade, the Ashbal al-Aqida Brigade", in addition to attaching the remnants of ISIS mercenaries who fled from al-Baghouz to them.

The Sultan Murad mercenaries bear responsibility for the execution of war wounded during the occupation of the city of Manbij on December 10, as mercenaries appeared speaking broken Arabic in addition to Turkish in a video clip of a field execution of Manbij Military Council forces or civilians who refused the entry of mercenaries into their city.

It is considered one of the first mercenary formations that agreed to Turkish requests to send Syrian mercenaries to Libya and Azerbaijan to pave the way for other mercenaries, which led to the defection of about 3,000 mercenaries from its ranks for many reasons, including the theft of real salaries and joining the fighting in Libya and Niger by its leader.

The Sultan Murad militia also placed a huge picture of Erdogan on Mount Ghar in the Bulbul district during its occupation in 2018.

The record of the Sultan Murad mercenaries is full of heinous crimes in both Azaz and occupied Afrin, including kidnappings, extortion and rape, as its prisons are run by Turkish intelligence, including the notorious al-Ra’i prison.

 Al-Mu'tasim Division Mercenaries:

The "Al-Mu'tasim Division" mercenary faction was established in the city of Mare', north of Aleppo, in the summer of 2015, where it was active in the northern Latakia countryside before Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham forced it to leave the area towards the northern Aleppo countryside. After directing Turkish support to the mercenaries, the latter facilitated the Turkish army's incursion into Syrian territory, especially in the area extending between Jarabulus and Afrin starting in 2016.

While participating in the occupation of Kurdish cities such as Afrin in 2018 and Serekaniye and Gire Spi in 2019.

The leaders of the mercenaries of the "Mu'tasim Brigade" are being pursued by charges of "treason, corruption, abuse of power, and theft of revolution funds and public money", which caused an internal dispute between the mercenaries to erupt in mid-2024.

Mercenaries of the National Liberation Front:

It was founded in 2018 from a gathering of several mercenary factions, headed by the so-called "Jaysh al-Nasr" mercenaries and the "Syrian Liberation Front, the Elite Army, and the Falcons of the Levant" mercenaries and many other mercenary factions, which were among the most prominent factions attacking the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods in 2015 and 2016, causing the displacement and killing of hundreds of Kurdish civilians in Aleppo, Afrin and Manbij at different times.

While its formations include mercenaries from the so-called "Ahrar al-Sharqiya" who opened fire on members of the Kurdish "Peshmerga" family in the Jandaris district of the occupied city of Afrin on the night of March 20, 2023, while they were celebrating Newroz, which resulted in the loss of five lives and the injury of others, followed by widespread protests demanding that the perpetrators be held accountable.

T/ Satt.

ANHA