After ousting Syria’s longtime dictator from power last year, ending more than a decade of brutal civil war, the country’s new interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has pledged to embrace human rights amid renewed ties with Europe and America.
But those promises are complicated by al-Sharaa’s decision to hand control of a key military division to a commander whose militia was sanctioned by the United States for kidnapping, torturing and sexually abusing women from Syria’s ethnic Kurdish minority.
A CNN investigation, which draws on interviews with witnesses, as well as exclusive videos and images from the militia’s secret jails, gives searing new insight into the scope of abuses allegedly carried out under the command of Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr, recently appointed to lead a military unit in the most populous governorate in Syria.
Boulad is one of several commanders who, along with their militias, have been accused by the US and the United Nations of grave human rights abuses, and now occupy influential roles in Syria’s new army.
“This is an insult to our suffering,” said Lonjin Abdo, 29, a Syrian activist and refugee who spent years being held and abused by members of Boulad’s Hamza Division. “It means my suffering and those who suffered alongside me are being sidelined.”
Abdo’s account of abuses under the authority of a member of al-Sharaa’s top military brass comes after President Donald Trump lavished praise on the Syrian leader last month and dropped sanctions on the country.
The news was welcomed with street parties by millions of Syrians who have suffered for decades under crushing sanctions. But there are fears that Western support for al-Sharaa, if unconditional, may embolden elements of the new regime with horrific rights records.
There are already worrying signs that military leaders like Boulad, elevated by al-Sharaa, have continued their abuses.
In May, the European Union sanctioned Boulad, accusing his division of torturing and arbitrarily killing civilians from Syria’s Alawite religious minority during violence on Syria’s coast in March.
Hundreds of civilians, mostly from the Alawite sect, are believed to have been killed by forces aligned with al-Sharaa’s government. The massacres came after remnants of the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad, himself an Alawite, staged an ambush on government forces in the coastal city of Latakia, prompting reprisal attacks.
Boulad belongs to a loose coalition of Turkish-backed fighters known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), who battled alongside al-Sharaa’s now disbanded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the final showdown with Assad’s forces last December. The US and UN had previously designated HTS as a terror group for its affiliations with al-Qaeda.
Syrian rights and civil society groups, as well as Human Rights Watch, have reported that SNA factions are still detaining, extorting and torturing Kurdish civilians in northern Syria with impunity. The SNA has long terrorized Kurds in the region, according to the watchdogs, arbitrarily arresting civilians on pretextual charges, such as affiliation with Kurdish militias that Turkey considers terror organizations.
Some experts say their integration into Syria’s new military is a recipe for disaster.
“Hiring the same armed groups that committed violations against the Kurds is not a good signal,” said Dr. Annyssa Bellal, executive director of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, an inter-agency network that works closely with the UN. “Until the accountability of past crimes – not only of the regime but of the different armed groups – have been addressed, I don’t see any stability in Syria for the near future.”
CNN reached out to the Syrian presidency, the Syrian Ministry of Defense and Sayf Boulad Abu Bakr for comment on the allegations of abuse but has not received any response.
Lonjin Abdo was just 22 years old when she was kidnapped from her home in Afrin, Aleppo. It was 2018, the seventh year of Syria’s devastating civil war, and the Turkish military, alongside the SNA, had just launched an incursion into the Kurdish-majority enclave. Hundreds were killed in the fighting on the border, and when the district fell to the SNA, lawlessness prevailed.
Abdo recalled being thrown into the back of a four-by-four, hands bound, and eyes covered, tumbling down the unpaved streets of northern Syria. When she arrived at an underground facility, she said she heard her captor say: “‘Rayyes,’” the Arabic word for boss. “‘I’ve got a pretty one for you.’”
For the first seven months of her captivity, Abdo told CNN she was held in solitary confinement at a military base in Huwar Kilis, near the Turkish border, which houses several SNA factions including Hamza. Afterwards, for two years, she said Hamza militants moved her from one secret jail to another alongside 10 other women, including her sister, and two toddlers who were kidnapped along with their mother.
“We were suffering together, getting hungry together. We were getting tortured together,” she said.
Two women jailed by Boulad’s men spoke with CNN on the condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety given his elevated role in the military. The women said they remain traumatized and would only discuss some aspects of their captivity.
The US, UN and rights groups have reported claims that SNA factions have engaged in the widespread kidnapping and sexual abuse of Kurdish women in northern Syria as part of their reign of terror in the region. Under Boulad, eyewitnesses, including a former member of the Hamza Division, said some women were sold into sexual slavery, traded among powerful men and repeatedly raped by members of the brigade.
“It was a trade. They were buying and selling them,” said the former Hamza militant, who spoke to CNN anonymously for fear of reprisal. “They were selling them to people who were close to them.”
“(Hamza) betrayed the principles of the revolution,” he added. “And I started to question whether there was a difference between these people who call themselves revolutionaries and the regime of Bashar Al-Assad.”
The militants recorded videos of the women in detention, capturing evidence of their own crimes. In one clip, a man can be seen sexually assaulting two female inmates, exposing himself as the women scream: “For the love of God, please leave us alone.”
The women’s assault was staged to appear as if they were Arab women being abused by Kurdish captors, according to witnesses A recording of the assault was then posted on social media as propaganda. CNN was able to verify that the incident took place in the jail where the 11 Kurdish women were held captive, in the city of Afrin, using other available imagery of their cell.
A video, filmed by militants and shared on social media, shows two women being assaulted in a Hamza jail.
Asked what the worst part of her captivity was, one survivor, whose identity CNN is concealing for security reasons said: “It was the rape.”
“The hunger. The torture,” she added. “Every phase was full of pain.”
The former Hamza insider said that the women were forced to read confessions professing links to Kurdish militant groups. The women were recorded reading the statements, which were scripted by Hamza militants, the source said.
When Abdo was first kidnapped, she described sleeping and eating next to a squat toilet crawling with insects at the Huwar Kilis base. In her confinement, she listened out for the voices emanating from the courtyard to get a sense of her surroundings.
Two weeks after she was first abducted, she said she heard the cries of a familiar voice – her 17-year-old sister. “I didn’t want to believe it. I banged on the door… and then I asked the fighter, ‘have you brought my sister?’ He said, ‘no,’” Abdo told CNN from her small studio apartment in France, where she was granted asylum shortly after her release from captivity in 2020.
“My sister’s screams of agony from the torture kept getting louder. And that’s when I knew – she kept calling out ‘Baba, baba.’ She was calling out for our dad,” Abdo said. “This is when I had a complete breakdown.”
Seven months into her detention, Abdo said she and her sister were transferred to Hamza’s security office in Afrin. Video filmed by Hamza militants, obtained by CNN, show Abdo and the other women, along with two toddlers who were kidnapped with their mother, crammed into a makeshift cell in squalid conditions.
“The mother used to use the blankets as diapers. Our blankets were infested with lice and worms. The two children used to get very sick,” Abdo said. “And there was no medical treatment. Their situation was very difficult. It was even worse than ours.”
A toddler seen smiling at the camera was just eight months old when he was kidnapped alongside his mother and brother, his fellow captives told CNN. Obtained by CNN
The women said that Boulad visited the jail and witnessed their abuse himself.
“Sayf (Boulad) Abu Bakr came to us three times. We used to ask him when we would be released but he never gave us an answer,” said one of Abdo’s fellow abductees, who has remained in Aleppo – the same governorate where the women were held and Boulad now leads a military division.
“He gave the men orders. Do this, do that,” she added. “He knew about us, what his men and commanders were doing to us.”
Abdo described one incident in which the inmates suffered food poisoning because the guards gave them cheese infested with maggots. Boulad visited their cell the next day, according to Abdo, to find the women screaming in agony.
“We saw (Boulad) multiple times. Every time he came to us, he would make promises. But nothing ever happened,” said Abdo, adding that Boulad told them the conditions would improve. “If anything, our treatment only got worse.”
Hopes of freedom faded by the day, and the women wished for death, according to the survivors. “Many of the women who were with me attempted suicide more than once,” said Lonjin. “Suicide attempts were nearly daily in the prison.”
Boulad has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on accusations he was complicit in the women’s abuse.
Abdo and her fellow captives’ whereabouts only became public in May 2020 when factional fighting erupted in Afrin, resulting in a raid on Hamza’s headquarters in the city. A rival faction came across the women, ordered them to cover up and rushed them out of their close quarters, only to hand them back a few days later, according to witnesses.
During the skirmishes, onlookers filmed the women being corralled out of the headquarters, and the videos were published on social media. Abdo and her sister’s relatives finally learned where they were being held, and Kurdish civil society mounted pressure to secure their release.
The sisters were freed on the last day of 2020. Months later, Abdo became a refugee in France where she found a new lease on life. By day, she’s a university student. By night, she runs a support network for victims of abduction in Syria, called Lelun.
Lonjin Abdo, now 29, is a university student in France. In her spare time, she runs a support network for Syrian survivors of abduction. CNN
“When my name appeared on the release list, the women said to me, Lonjin, please don’t forget us,” said Abdo. “So, this stayed in my head. And I always promised myself that if I ever got out, I’d work for the young women inside for all of my life.”
The memories of her time detained by the Hamza Division still haunt her. And her captors continued to torment her long after her release. Abdo said they tracked down her phone number and sent images of her time in detention, along with threats not to speak out about the abuse she suffered.
CNN was able to review some of the messages sent to the women.
One of the photographs Abdo received shows a lock of hair, which she said her jailers tore out while she was being tortured. She said she wove the strands together into a braid, which they later confiscated.
“I felt like they were detaining me again,” said Abdo, recounting the week in 2022 when she received the images. “It was a week full of fear. It was like being tortured again on repeat. It was horrible.”
From her new home in France, Abdo has watched in horror as al-Sharaa has elevated Boulad and other notorious militia leaders.
Boulad was appointed head of the 76th Division in Aleppo, overseeing one of three military units in the governorate.
Among the other commanders accused of past abuses – including kidnapping and extortion – who now hold key posts: Mohammad Hussein al-Jasim (known as Abu Amsha), head of the 62nd Division in Hama governorate, and Ahmad Ihsan Fayyad al-Hayes, commander of the 86th Division in the country’s eastern region.
One survivor, currently a refugee in Europe, told CNN that with SNA militia leaders in charge she couldn’t consider returning home. “This is a pang of pain that will remain in my heart for as long as these people who oppressed, killed and pillaged now run an entire country,” she said. “As long as these people rule Syria, I can’t even think of going back to live amongst them. Impossible.”
Brian Carter, Middle East portfolio manager at the Washington-based think tank American Enterprise Institute, told CNN that al-Sharaa’s decision to appoint some SNA militia leaders to positions in the army was part of a delicate security balancing act that has defined post-Assad Syria.
“In an ideal world, al-Sharaa would want to build new army units, rather than redesignating SNA militias as new divisions,” Carter said, adding that the reality was Syria’s new president had little choice but to integrate them. “To sideline them would probably cause problems with Turkey, but more importantly, would cause more fighting within Syria in this transition period.”
For Abdo, the quest for justice continues.
In early May, al-Sharaa flew to Paris for his first visit to a European country since coming to power. In a joint press conference, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would urge the EU to lift sanctions on Syria, so long as its new leader “continues on his path.” Al-Sharaa reiterated vows to usher in peace and protect all Syrians.
The EU lifted a wide range of sanctions on Syria on May 28, but kept in place those targeting individuals and organizations it says have violated human rights.
After the historic meeting at the Élysée Palace, al-Sharaa gave an audience to a group of France-based Syrian activists, but Abdo was not among them. Al-Sharaa’s team did not reply to CNN’s request for comment on the meeting.
Speaking to CNN just a few hundred meters away, Abdo, resolute, said that had she been able to come face to face with Syria’s new president, she wouldn’t have held back.
“I wouldn’t spare him a single detail of what happened to me, so that he knows the reality of these people he put in positions of power,” she said. “He should be our voice, defend our rights. But he’s doing the opposite.”
