Illustrative image.
On April 1, heavy clashes broke out between militants of the Ahrar al-Sham Movement and others from the al-Shamiya Front in the Turkish-occupied town of al-Awlan in the northern countryside of Syria’s Aleppo.
The clashes broke out when the unit controlling al-Awlan under the banner of al-Shamiya Front, defected returning to its original faction, Ahrar al-Sham. The defection was the result of a disagreement between the unit’s commander and the leadership of al-Shamiya.
The al-Shamiya Front responded by launching a large-scale attack on al-Awlan. The intense clashes in the town halted traffic on the roads connecting the town of al-Bab with the towns of al-Rai and Susian.
In the course of the clashes, dozens of al-Shamiya Front militants were reportedly captured by the Ahrar al-Sham fighters.
— همام عيسى (@humam_isa) April 1, 2022
The clashes lasted for several hours, and only ended after the intervention of the Revolutionaries Committee for Liberation and the al-Sharqiyah Army.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, three militants from the Ahrar al-Sham Movement and the al-Shamiya Front were killed in the clashes.
It’s worth noting that both the Ahrar al-Sham Movement and the al-Shamiya Front are key factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA), which rules over Turkish-occupied areas in northern and northeastern Syria. The coalition is disorganized and lacks a real unified command.
Confrontations between SNA factions are quite common in Turkish-occupied areas in northern and northeastern Syria. These confrontations are usually the result of competition for influence or caused by disagreements over criminal activities.