One Turkmen rebel commander in Aleppo claimed that over 700 Turkmen had joined his battalion and 3,000 others were fighting the government in the province.[230] He said that Turkmen had "suffered for 40 years" under the Assad government, explaining that Hafez al-Assad "took our lands [...] banned our language and stopped us from learning about our history and culture. He stripped us of our rights and changed our villages' names into Arabic names".[230] According to some sources Turkmen militias as of June 2013 number up to 10,000 members.[236][237]