A bearded fighter hurled the body of a Kurdish female combatant to the ground “from a height”, as his comrades shouted religious slogans and sectarian chants. He lifted her in his arms and threw her from the second floor of a bomb-damaged building in Aleppo, during clashes between Syrian Army formations and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The widely circulated video sparked broad condemnation, as the fighter was seen desecrating a corpse. The scene reflected a profound moral collapse and a crude display of power over a lifeless human being.
A Legacy of a Previous Era
The outrage stems from two factors. First, such conduct is a continuation of a legacy inherited from an earlier era, part of the cycle of retribution that Syria witnessed throughout years of Baathist warfare against its own people. Second, it reopens the wounds of Syria’s identity- and ethnicity-based divisions, reinforcing the notion of “Syrians as enemies”, and undermining ongoing reconciliation efforts.
The fallen fighter quickly became a Kurdish symbol. Dozens of posts circulated online describing her as an “angel who ascended”, defending a cause she believed in.
This is not the first incident of its kind. In previous years, Syria witnessed similar abuses, the most notorious being the mutilation of the body of Kurdish fighter Amina Omar, known as “Barin”, in 2018. She had joined the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units in 2015 and was killed by opposition fighters in the village of Qurna in Afrin.
The Foreign Fighter Problem
Investigations into the latest incident in Aleppo’s Sheikh Maqsoud district indicate that the fighter who threw the woman’s body “from a height” was not Syrian, but an Egyptian extremist fighting within a pro-government military formation. This places the new authorities before a difficult challenge: how to deal with foreign fighters embedded within state-aligned groups.
The challenge goes beyond simply addressing their presence. It includes the question of whether the state can control foreign fighters and their violent, extremist behavior, which ultimately reflects on the image of the government and complicates its efforts to consolidate reconciliation.
The government has long struggled with this issue. According to a 2023 study by the Jusoor Center for Studies, the number of foreign fighters in Syria has been declining since 2018, and their total count no longer exceeds five thousand.
Since assuming power in early 2025, the new Syrian government has worked to regulate and contain foreign fighters in order to avoid international sensitivities and prevent clashes between these groups and local communities, particularly after the state expanded its control across Syrian territory following the fall of Assad.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
