Liwa Ahrar Souriya

The group received funding from sources in Saudi Arabia. By 2013, it required 2 million Turkish liras (equivalent of $568,456.42) daily to operate. The group also stole money and looted from warehouses in the al-Layramoun district of Aleppo and Kafr Hamrah. It also conducted kidnapping for large amounts of ransom.[1]

The group was originally formed as the Free Anadan Brigade by Ahmad Afash, a rebel from the Khalidiya district of Aleppo. It fielded 500 fighters by mid-2012 and took part in the Battle of Anadan in July 2012. After the battle, the group captured several tanks from the Syrian Army and gained influence as well as additional fighters, and changed its name to the Free Syria Brigade, or Liwa Ahrar Souriya.[1]

In late October 2012, amid infighting between the People's Protection Units and other rebel groups in Aleppo, the Free Syria Brigade abducted 120 Kurdish civilians in the area. After negotiations between the Democratic Union Party and FSA groups, they were released.[16]

In December 2012 the group signed a declaration that rejected the authority of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and proposed to establish an Islamic state, although its leader later withdrew from the declaration and recognized the National Coalition.[7]

Free Syria Brigade fighters load (top) and fire (bottom) improvised artillery during a battle with ISIL forces in northern Aleppo in November 2015.

In September 2013, the Free Syria Brigade became a founding member group of the 16th Division. Another group in the 16th Division was the Badr Martyrs Brigade, led by Khaled Hayani. Tensions brewed between Hayani and Ahmad Afash after the Badr Martyrs Brigade clashed with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in October 2013. The Free Syria Brigade left the 16th Division in November 2013 and redeployed its fighters away from the frontlines with ISIL and toward the frontlines against the Syrian Army. The group was known to be corrupt. Among other things he did to receive money, Ahmad Afash confiscated alcohol to sell them to merchants outside Aleppo. During this time, he also acquired a Mercedes-Benz S-Class.[1]

At the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, infighting between ISIL and other rebel groups escalated in northern Syria. During the infighting, Ahmad Afash fled to Turkey and rented a hotel in Mersin. During his stay in Turkey, Afash became a drug addict and was once hospitalized. Meanwhile, in Syria, the Free Syria Brigade held out in Aleppo and its surrounding areas.[1]

On 19 May 2014, the Free Syria Brigade and the al-Nusra Front detonated a tunnel bomb in the Ancient City of Aleppo which destroyed a historic palace, which at the time was used by the Syrian Army as a military headquarter.[17]

In October 2015, during the Russian military intervention in Syria, the Free Syria Brigade headquarters in the northern Aleppo Governorate was hit by a Russian airstrike which killed 7 of its fighters.[18]

Since November 2015, the group has participated in the shelling of Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood, controlled by the People's Protection Units as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces.[19]

In September 2016, the Free Syria Brigade joined the Hamza Division.[12] 2 months later, on 15 November 2016, it left the Hamza Division and joined the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement's north Aleppo branch, whom they in turned joined the Sham Legion's north Aleppo branch.[20] They in turn dissolved to form the Revolutionary Knights Brigade, which is a part of the Northern Brigade that left the Sham Legion on 30 May 2017, though their current membership is unclear, and it is also unclear if they are still active.[21]

• List of armed groups in the Syrian Civil War

• Report of the independent international commission of inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (PDF). Geneva: UNHRC. 2013.