Sultan Murad Division

The Sultan Murad Division (فرقة السلطان مراد; Firqat al-Sultan Murad, Sultan Murat Tümeni) is an armed rebel group in the Syrian Civil War, created around Syrian Turkmen identity. They are aligned with the Syrian opposition and are heavily supported by Turkey, who provides funding and military training along with artillery and aerial support. They are the most notable group among Syrian Turkmen Brigades supported by Turkey.

Ideology and structure
Named after Ottoman Sultan Murad II, the flag of the Sultan Murad Division quotes the Shahada to express a political commitment to political Islam (Islamism), while the red field symbolizes Turkish nationalism, fusioning in their core ideology of Neo-Ottomanism.

Several commanders of the group are Ahmed Othman, Fehim İsa and Ali Şeyh Salih, who is an ethnic Arab.

Equipment
Among the Syrian rebel groups participating in the Turkish military intervention in Syria, the Sultan Murad Division is the group that receives the most support from the Turkish Armed Forces. It operates at least 8 FNSS ACV-15 armoured personnel carriers during the operation. The group also operate Milkor MGL grenade launchers.

The main heavy weapons of the group consist of technical vehicles armed with heavy machine guns and autocannons. Previously it has also received BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles from the United States, although more support is given by Turkey than the US since the former's intervention.

History
The Sultan Murad Brigade was formed in early 2013 and mainly operated in the Aleppo Governorate. By 2016, the group claimed to have around 1,300 fighters, with its numbers continuing to grow. It took part in the Turkish military intervention in Syria, during which the Sultan Murad Division became one of the leading militias in northern Syria. In mid-2017, it formed the "Sultan Murad Bloc" with other units within the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA).

Between 4 and 15 June, heavy fighting broke out between TFSA factions led by the Sultan Murad Division and Ahrar al-Sham and its allies in and near al-Bab. By 15 June, 33 people were killed and 55 injured in the infighting. On 8 June, between 60 and 70 TFSA fighters, including several Sultan Murad Division commanders, defected to the Syrian Army and the Syrian Democratic Forces during the clashes. According to the Hawar Kilis Operations Room, of which the Sultan Murad Division is a part, the unit led by Abu al-Kheir al-Munbaji that defected to the government had run criminal activities and was supposed to be arrested when it deserted.

Torture, rape and displacement
After their capture of the town of Jarabulus from ISIL in September 2016, Sultan Murad Division fighters published pictures of themselves torturing four YPG members prisoners of war, who were captured by the rebel group while, according to YPG claims, trying to evacuate civilians. Two of the Sultan Murad Division fighters who had been involved in the torture of POWs were later captured and questioned by the Anti-Terror Units.

The pro-SDF/anti-Turkish Hawar News Agency has also accused the Sultan Murad Division of various abuses of civilians in the Turkish-occupied areas in northern Syria, such as torturing a civilian from Tat Hims to death, raping a pregnant woman in al-Bab, as well as stealing from and displacing Kurdish civilians and YPG sympathizers in the village of Qa'ar Kalbeybin.

Shelling of civilian areas
On 25 October 2013, the Sultan Murad Division shelled a monastery in Aleppo.

In a video from February 2016 showing a Sultan Murad Division artillery team in Aleppo in action, an explicit order to fire on civilians is given.

According to an Amnesty International report from May 2016, indiscriminate shelling of Sheikh Maqsoud by Islamist rebel groups, including the Sultan Murad Division, killed between February and April 2016 at least 83 civilians, including 30 children, and injured more than 700 civilians. Amnesty International’s regional director suggested that these repeated indiscriminate attacks constitute war crimes.

A United Nations report in February 2017 came to the conclusion that during the siege of Eastern Aleppo the joint operations room of Syrian rebel factions Fatah Halab including the Sultan Murad Division, after vowing to take revenge on the Kurds in Sheikh Maqsoud, intentionally attacked civilian inhabited neighbourhoods of the Kurdish enclave, killing and maiming dozens of civilians, and that these acts constitute the war crime of directing attacks against a civilian population.