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In Aleppo, arrest campaigns carried out by factions loyal to Turkey continue as things changed in this region and they went from Assad’s prisons to prisons for armed factions.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that Faylaq al-Sham continues to practice practices that violate the lives of Syrian civilians in the areas it controls.
It noted that armed men from the Sham Legion fighting within the ranks of the National Army raided the villages of Kaand, Akbis Square and Haj Khalil in the Rajo region, where they arrested several civilians and took them to their prisons, accused of “search for artifacts”, not to mention the arrest of a citizen of Fafrtin village. In Afrin for unknown reasons.
Last September, gunmen from the Hamza Division, also loyal to Ankara, carried out a campaign of raids and arrests of civilians in Afrin, where they were placed in their own prisons.
Sham Legion and its relationship with Erdogan
A researcher on Syrian affairs, Nicholas Heras, says: “The Sham Legion is Turkey’s favorite representative for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” among the pro-Ankara Syrian factions.
It explains that it is considered “the most prominent recruitment agency for foreign forces sent by the Turkish leader against Russia’s allies … from North Africa to the Caucasus,” according to a previous report by Agence France-Presse.
This faction is considered the most preferred by Ankara, and has fought alongside it on various fronts inside and outside Syria.
This faction was established in March 2014 and, following the merger of various armed factions, they were active in northern and central Syria, as well as in the countryside of Damascus, and their name quickly emerged in the Syrian arena.
The Legion was part of the “Army of Conquest” coalition, which included various opposition factions and the Al-Sham Liberation Headquarters, and took control of the entire Idlib governorate in the summer of 2015, before that the “Sham Legion” would later fight against the “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”, who was almost alone in control of Idlib province and some neighboring areas.
The Corps has participated in all three military operations carried out by Turkey since 2016 in Syria, with a particular focus on Kurdish fighters.
As one of the most prominent opposition factions, representatives of the “Sham Legion” participated in several negotiation sessions between the opposition and the Syrian government under the auspices of the United Nations in Geneva, which did not yield any results, and their representatives also participated in the Astana talks.
Thousands of its members are deployed in the areas controlled by the Turkish forces in northern Syria, such as Azaz and Afrin, and in the northern countryside of Idlib.
About 18,000 Levant Legion fighters participated in the battles in Libya, along with the Ankara-backed “Government of National Accord” in the face of a Russian-backed parallel government, and Ankara trusted them to participate in the battles of Karabakh. .
Targeting a russian
Last October, opposition factions in northern Syria and loyal to Turkey were subjected to military attacks in the form of Russian fighter jets that launched raids against the “False Legion”, the most prominent factions of the “National Army”, that Turkey supports logistically and with military equipment.
The blow that the Sham Legion received, the hardest since the beginning of the Russian incursions in Syria, with 78 dead and more than 170 wounded, among the members of the Sham Legion.
Analysts suggested that Russia wanted to target the “False Legion” by “sending a message” to Turkey, which it faces in various conflicts.
