An exclusive source told North Press that "The group is affiliated with a commander from the Annan family in the countryside of Zawiya Mountain in the south of Idlib. They assaulted the man while crossing with his family at one of their checkpoints near the village of Chobana in Rajo sub-district."
"The military group confiscated the wood that the civilian was collecting, but when he protested their actions, they beat and insulted him in front of his family," the source added.
The source noted that " he was robbed, insulted, and threatened with guns if he pressed any complaints."
Annan and his group are considered one of the most prominent assistants of Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...(HTS, formerly al-Nusra
...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ...
Front) in the region.
The Monitoring and Documentation Department of North Press recorded 26 assault cases, including three against women since the beginning of 2023.
The formerly Kurdish-majority region of Afrin has been under
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
and its affiliated opposition factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA), replaced the population with Arabs fleeing other parts of Syria. Kurds in Afrin are subject to systemic discrimination and violence. In 2022 alone, 633 people, mostly Kurds, were arbitrarily arrested by SNA factions and Turkey.