afrinpost-exclusive
Mouhammad Mahmoud Khair Fawaz, widely known as Mahmoud al-Dimashqi, has once again taken to social media to criticize the behavior of militias affiliated with Ankara. In a brief post, al-Dimashqi remarked, “While you are watching the Indian movie Life of a Goat, Kurdish families are paying $100 for Gaza. God help the family that doesn’t pay.” He concluded with a biting critique: “The true face of the ‘liberator’ that influencers avoid acknowledging.”
This comes as the “Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade” (also known as the al-Amshat militia) imposed a new extortion fee of $100 on each Kurdish family in the town of Mobato (Maabatli) and several nearby villages. This follows similar measures enforced across the entire district of Sheikh al-Hadid (including the town and 15 villages) and various villages in the Jindires sub-district. The militia has reportedly used extreme intimidation and brutality to forcibly extract these payments, threatening severe punishment for non-compliance or even delay in payment.
Previously, on May 10, 2022, al-Dimashqi was arrested by the Military Police militia, accused of spreading “misleading” information about a leader within the “Jaish Al-Islam” militias. The militia issued a written statement claiming that Al-Dimashqi was detained “by judicial order after spreading false and misleading information and inciting sectarian and regional strife without evidence, merely for fame and media attention.”
The police further stated that “it was confirmed by the relevant authorities that what was published about one of the components of the Third Corps and one of its leaders was a series of false reports intended solely to incite factional discord and tarnish the image of the revolution and the revolutionaries, prompted by suspicious parties.”
On July 21, 2020, Mahmoud al-Dimashqi, an IDP in Afrin and well-known media activist, was brought to trial. He faced charges related to “weakening revolutionary sentiment” and “inciting against the Turks” due to a post on his Facebook page criticizing Turkish-backed militias of the “Syrian National Army” for wearing Turkish flags on their chests during a military graduation ceremony, calling them “slaves.”
