Title: “Everything is by the Power of the Weapon”
Place of publication: USA
Publisher: Human Rights Watch
Release date: 2024

In swathes of northern Syria, Türkiye is an occupying power.
It exercises administrative and military control on the Syrian side of its southern border both directly and through a de facto proxy it helped create, the Syrian National Army (SNA), a loose coalition of armed opposition groups that is largely made up of former Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters.

The Turkish government has stated that it aims to turn the areas it occupies into “safe zones,” both to create a security buffer on its southern border and to accommodate returns of Syrian refugees living in Türkiye. But these areas are not safe; they are rife with human rights abuses primarily perpetrated by factions of the SNA and life for the region’s 1.4 million residents is characterized by lawlessness and insecurity. “Everything is by the power of the weapon,” said one former resident who lived under SNA rule for just under 3 years.[1]