Aleppo, north Syria – Security forces affiliated with Syria’s Defense Ministry detained three Kurdish men in the Afrin region of northern Aleppo province on Tuesday, according to local sources.
Members of the “Samarkand Brigade,” a militia operating under the ministry, stormed a mourning tent in the village of Kafr Safra in Jindires subdistrict and arrested three attendees. Six people had travelled from Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood to offer condolences to relatives, but only half managed to flee the raid. The others were detained on accusations of collaborating with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the Kurdish-led authority governing adjacent areas. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
The incident follows the June 19 killing of 17-year-old Mustafa Jamil Sheikho, shot dead by unidentified gunmen while guarding his family’s solar panels in Afrin.
Afrin, historically home to a Kurdish majority, has been under Turkish control since March 2018, when Ankara and allied Syrian factions launched a two-month offensive against the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have documented widespread abuses against Kurdish civilians since the takeover – among them arbitrary arrests, property seizures, forced displacement, and disappearances.
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The United Nations estimates that about half of Afrin’s 320,000 residents fled during the Turkish offensive, and most have yet to return.
Although a clause allowing displaced civilians to return to their homes was included in the April agreement signed between Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, reports of arbitrary arrests and extortion continue to surface almost daily. According to local testimonies, some returnees face detention or demands for money in exchange for reclaiming their homes, which were seized by fighters’ families after the 2018 offensive.
