How is “Abu Amsha” Making Millions of Dollars Every Year?
Executive Summary
This investigation sheds light on the various sources financing the Suleiman Shah Brigade (also known as al-Amshat), at a factional level, and its commander, Muhammad al-Jasim (Abu Amsha), at an individual level, which help both the armed group and its leadership maintain a tight military grip in Syria, especially in the area of Shaykh al-Hadid, in Afrin region, which is referred locally by its Kurdish residents as Şiyê.
The investigation provides corroborated information about the sources of Abu Amsha’s personal fortune and the many illegal “investments” he manages in Syria, Turkey, and Libya, depending on his five brothers and a small circle of close personalities.
The investigation reveals that Abu Amsha’s wealth, and that of his faction, comes mainly from the pockets of civilians in Shaykh al-Hadid district. Locals are subjected to a systemic pattern of extortion. They are arbitrarily arrested or abducted and then asked to pay ransoms in exchange for their release. They are also robbed of their properties, residential or commercial, which are seized under the pretext of the owners’ affiliation with the Kurdish Autonomous Administration that remained in control of the area until March 2018. Testimonies obtained by Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) confirm that Abu Amsha ordered many of these violations, which are supervised by his brothers and executed by his faction’s fighters.
In addition to extortion and property appropriations, Abu Amsha’s wealth for the large part rests on large-scale crop confiscations or taxes on the local population. Abu Amsha accumulated the greatest sum of his money, estimated at millions of dollars, after Afrin region was occupied in March 2018. Abu Amsha seized almost all the olive yield and other crops cultivated by Kurdish farmers in 2018, while he continued to impose taxes and royalties on farmers over the following harvest seasons, which amounted to 25% of the harvest value.
Furthermore, in the context of agricultural abuses, Abu Amsha resorted to other methods to burden the area’s original inhabitants with additional royalties. Abu Amsha’s faction established control and monopoly over the springs in Shaykh al-Hadid district and coerced Kurdish farmers to pay extra sums of money in return for irrigation water.
In addition to the sources behind Abu Amsha’s growing finances, the information STJ obtained through 26 extensive interviews reveal the extent of his annual revenues, which exceed the 30,000,000 USD mark.[1]
