Members affiliated with factions known as the Turkey-backed “Syrian National Army” arrested three Kurdish young men on Saturday, 13 December 2025, while they were traveling in their private cars from the city of Aleppo to the city of Ayn al-Arab/Kobani in northern Syria.
The detained young men are: Bashir Hussein, Haidar Eiso, and Samer Abdul Qader.
According to available information, the armed factions stopped the vehicle carrying the three young men at a temporary checkpoint set up before the Deir Hafir crossing, where they were immediately detained without the presentation of any legal warrants or the filing of clear charges.
Local sources reported that the reason for the arrest was the discovery of photos of Kurdish symbols stored on the phone of one of the detainees, without providing any legal justifications or official clarifications regarding the nature of the accusation or the competent judicial authority.
According to the same sources, the three young men were taken to one of the prisons located in the Afrin area, amid a state of anxiety and fear among their families, in the absence of any information about their legal status or fate.
The arrest was carried out at a temporary checkpoint during the movement of civilians between Syrian cities, without any indications that they had committed acts in violation of the law, and on the pretext of personal content found on one of the mobile phones, which points to the arbitrary nature of the measure taken against them.
This incident comes amid growing fears among the Kurdish population of the continuation of a policy of arbitrary arrests and systematic violations, particularly in areas of the northern Aleppo countryside, where cases of detention without judicial orders are repeatedly reported, along with a lack of transparency regarding places of detention and the legal status of detainees.
This incident falls within a broader pattern of violations affecting Kurdish civilians in recent times, including arrests on ethnic or political grounds and detention without clear legal procedures, in a security environment witnessing a noticeable deterioration and an actual absence of accountability mechanisms.
