The European Union has sanctioned three Turkish-backed Sunni militia groups in Syria, along with two of their leaders, over human rights abuses committed against Syria’s Alawite minority during a wave of unchecked violence that swept the country’s western coast in March. More than a thousand people, mostly civilians, were killed in revenge attacks sparked by an attempted uprising by remnants of ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The move came after the European bloc agreed last week to lift sanctions on Syria in a bid to help the impoverished nation — now ruled by a transitional Islamist-led government — recover from more than 12 years of conflict.

The sanctioning of the Sultan Suleyman Shah Brigade, the Hamza Division and the Sultan Murad Division for their participation in the violence will be welcomed by Syria’s Kurds, who accuse the factions of war crimes against their people. In August 2023, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated the Suleyman Shah Brigade and the Hamza Division, as well as three members of the groups’ leadership, for gross human rights violations against residents of the Kurdish-majority region of Afrin in northern Syria, which was invaded by the Turkish army and its Sunni rebel allies in 2018.

The Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria has strongly protested the new Syrian government’s embrace of some of these factions’ leaders, notably of Ahmed al-Hayes — the leader of Ahrar al-Sharqiya — to head the army’s 86th division that oversees Deir Ezzor, Hasakah and Raqqa. The latter two areas and the part of Deir Ezzor lying east of the Euphrates River are under the control of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Hayes was also designated by the US Treasury.