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The Sultan Suleiman Shah Division (Arabic: فرقة السلطان سليمان شاه, romanized: Firqat al-Sulṭān Sulaymān Shāh) is a Turkish-backed faction in Syria operating under the Syrian National Army in the Syrian civil war. The group is also known as Suleiman Shah Brigade, and Amsha or al-Amshat after its commander Mohammed al-Jassem's nom de guerre, and was formerly known as the Fireline Brigade until 2016.[4]
After the Fall of the Assad regime the group has been incorporated into the new Syrian Army under the Syrian transitional government as the 62nd Division.[16][17]
The Sultan Suleiman Shah Division was one of the Syrian rebel groups that deployed fighters to participate in the Libyan Civil War on behalf of the Government of National Accord. As of September 2022, 3,000 Syrian rebel fighters were present in Libya.[18]
The division contributed a portion of the total between 1,500 and 2,000 Syrian rebel fighters deployed to Azerbaijan in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, participating in the conflict from September 2020 until its conclusion. This deployment led to some controversy, with one rebel fighter in northern Syria commenting in a widely-disseminated recording: "We can’t fight alongside the Shias. (...) [T]he Shias are our enemies more than the Christians and Jews".[19] Later, in April 2021, a group from among the division's fighters who had participated in the Nagorno-Karabakh War protested in Turkish-occupied northern Syria, accusing the division's head Mohammed al-Jassem of having seized their salaries.[20]
The division was one of the factions affiliated with the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army that deployed a combined total of at least 1,000 fighters to Niger between November 2023 and April 2024, in order to protect Turkish interests in the country, particularly mines.[21]
The group was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury for "serious human rights abuses against those residing in the Afrin region of northern Syria" in 2023.[22][23]
The group and its commander has been accused of widespread human rights abuses and war crimes, including extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, torture, extortion, sexual violence, and looting.[24]
Fighters from the Sultan Suleiman Shah Division participated in the 2025 massacres of Syrian Alawites.[15]
