New Syrian leader Sharaa says killings of Alawites threaten unity, vows justice
Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said mass killings of members of ousted President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect were a threat to his mission to unite the country, and promised to punish those responsible, including his own allies if necessary.
In his first interview to a global news agency, held after hundreds died in four days of clashes between Alawite Muslims and Syria's new Sunni Islamist authorities, Sharaa blamed pro-Assad groups backed by foreigners for triggering the bloodshed but acknowledged that revenge killings had followed.
"Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all," he told Reuters from the Damascus presidential palace, where Assad resided until Sharaa's forces toppled him on December 8, forcing the ousted ruler to flee to Moscow.
"We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won't accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us," Sharaa said.
In a wide-ranging interview, Sharaa also said that his government had had no contacts with the United States since President Donald Trump had taken office. He repeated pleas for Washington to lift sanctions imposed in the Assad era.
He also held out the prospect of restoring relations with Moscow, Assad's backer throughout the war, which is trying to retain two major military bases in Syria.
He rejected criticism from Israel, which has captured territory in southern Syria since Assad was toppled. And he said he aimed to resolve differences with Kurds, including by meeting the head of a Kurdish-led group long backed by Washington.
While he blamed the outbreak of violence in recent days on a former military unit loyal to Assad's brother and an unspecified foreign power, he acknowledged that in response "many parties entered the Syrian coast and many violations occurred."
"It became an opportunity for revenge" for years of pent-up grievances, he said, although he said the situation had since been largely contained.
Sharaa said 200 members of the security forces had been killed in the unrest, while declining to say the overall death toll pending an investigation, which will be conducted by an independent committee announced on Sunday before his interview.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Manar
10 hours ago
- Al Manar
Israeli Knesset Set to Vote on Disbanding in First Step to Possible Election
Israeli parliament is set to hold a preliminary vote on Wednesday to dissolve itself following a dispute over conscription, a first step that could lead to an early election, which polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would lose. The vote could still be pulled at the last minute, and even if it goes against Netanyahu, it would only be the first of four needed to bring forward elections. This would give Netanyahu's ruling coalition further time to resolve its worst political crisis yet and avoid a ballot, which would be Israel's first since the start of the war on Gaza. Dissolving the Knesset would only be a victory for Israel's enemies, said Boaz Bismuth, a lawmaker with Netanyahu's Likud party. 'During war this is the last thing Israel needs,' he told Reuters. Netanyahu has been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis. Some religious parties in Netanyahu's coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether. Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, however, see full-time devotion to religious studies as sacrosanct and military service as a threat to the students' strict religious lifestyle The exemptions have been a hot-button issue in Israel for years but have become particularly contentious during the war in Gaza, as Israel has suffered its highest battlefield casualties in decades and its stretched military is in need of more troops. Growing increasingly impatient with the political deadlock, ultra-Orthodox coalition factions have said they will vote with opposition parties in favor of dissolving the Knesset and bringing forward an election that is not due until late 2026. 'It's more than ever urgent to replace Netanyahu's government and specifically this toxic and harmful government,' said Labor's opposition lawmaker Merav Michaeli. 'It's urgent to end the war in Gaza and to bring back all the hostages. It's urgent to start rebuilding and healing the state of Israel.' Opposition parties are likely to withdraw the dissolution bill if Netanyahu's coalition resolves the crisis before the vote is held much later on Wednesday. But even if it passes Wednesday's reading, the bill's final approval requires three more votes, giving Netanyahu's coalition more time to come to agreements over conscription. If passed, the dissolution bill will next go to parliament committee discussions in between readings, a legislation process which could take days, weeks or months. In this time, Netanyahu could still reach agreements with the ultra-Orthodox parties, his key political allies, and shoot the bill down. To pass the final reading, the bill would need an absolute majority of at least 61 votes in the 120-seat parliament, called the Knesset in Hebrew, and an election will have to be held within five months. Successive polls have predicted that Netanyahu's coalition would lose in an election, with Israelis still reeling over the security failure of Palestinian group Hamas' October 7 2023 attack and hostages still held in Gaza. Hamas' surprise attack led to Israeli deadliest single day and shattered Netanyahu's security credentials, with 1,200 people killed and 251 hostages taken into Gaza. Israeli war on Gaza has since killed almost 55,000 Palestinians, left much of the territory in ruins, and its more than two million population largely displaced and gripped by a humanitarian crisis.
Ya Libnan
11 hours ago
- Ya Libnan
Trump wants to ‘liberate' Los Angeles, residents say ‘no thanks'
A man in a car uses his mobile phone as members of law enfocement stand guard on a road after curfew, as protests against federal immigration sweeps continue, in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S. June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis U.S. President Donald Trump says he sent in the National Guard and Marines to 'liberate' Los Angeles from the violence of protesters, but some residents of Little Tokyo, a neighborhood hit hardest by the unrest say 'no thanks' Mr President. A dozen people who live, work or frequent the neighborhood, where Japanese is heard spoken as frequently as English in shops and restaurants, on Tuesday told Reuters that Trump's use of the military was inflaming the protests against recent immigration raids in Los Angeles. 'The president sending in the National Guard and Marines has only made things worse, it's made the protesters go crazy,' said Sulieti Havili, who lives nearby and helps run a Pokemon club with over 6,000 members that routinely plays in Little Tokyo. 'They are doing nothing to protect this community.' Havili, 25, who was out picking up trash in Little Tokyo with her Pokemon club partner Nolberto Aguilar, 42, said it was clear to her that Trump sending in thousands of military personnel had 'brought out the worst in the protesters' and only served to aggravate the situation. Aguilar added that Trump's deployment of troops was thwarting the will of most Los Angeles citizens and local leaders, fanning the flames created by ICE immigration raids, that he said targeted law-abiding immigrants. The Trump administration says its immigration raids are rounding up de facto criminals for lacking proper documents to stay in the United States. California Governor Gavin Newsom has said the use of military personnel to combat the protests had 'inflamed a combustible situation' and warned that 'democracy is under assault.' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has said that Trump's use of troops was a deliberate effort to create 'chaos.' The Trump administration strongly rejects the accusations and says their actions were needed in the face of local and state leaders inability to get the situation under control. 'INSTIGATING' ACTION Little Tokyo, a charming neighborhood with shops selling Japanese goods and restaurants serving up some of the city's finest sushi, abuts the federal buildings where protesters have gathered for five nights in a row. For the past two nights, when police and National Guard troops have forcibly dispersed protesters in the early evening, demonstrators scatter into smaller groups into Little Tokyo, which has been covered with anti-ICE and anti-Trump graffiti. Running skirmishes well into the night in the neighborhood has seen police use booming flash-bangs and firing other 'less lethal' munitions at protesters. Several of those interviewed in Little Tokyo asked that they not be named, saying they feared reprisals – from the federal government. Many were immigrants themselves or had family members who were not born in the U.S., and feared making themselves or their loved ones targets of ICE. One of those was Anthony, who works at a tea shop in the neighborhood. 'There is no question that the president sending in thousands of National Guard and 700 Marines has done nothing but make the protesters more aggressive,' he said. 'It's instigating the protesters and making things worse.' Samantha Lopez, a descendent of Filipino immigrants who works at a Korean ice cream parlor in Little Tokyo, said she felt empathy for the demonstrators but rejected any acts of vandalism or violence they carry out. Still, she blamed the use of military personnel for creating the unrest. 'It's just poor handling of protests that stay peaceful until they're confronted by officers,' Lopez said. 'It's bad for business, and it's bad for this neighborhood.' REUTERS
Nahar Net
13 hours ago
- Nahar Net
Three Alawites killed after attack on Syria government forces
by Naharnet Newsdesk 11 June 2025, 11:44 Three Alawite civilians were killed in western Syria overnight, hours after an attack on government forces killed at least one officer, a war monitor said on Wednesday. Syrian authorities said four civilians were targeted by unknown attackers in the Tal Kalakh area near the Lebanese border, killing two of them. Since an Islamist-led offensive toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, the Alawite community, which he hails from, has been repeatedly attacked. Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the three civilians were killed in Baruha village by "local armed groups" who also set fire to shops and cars. The head of security in Homs province, Murhaf Naasan, said: "Four civilians were directly targeted by unknown people, killing two of them and critically wounding two others." The deaths comes hours after Syria's state-run SANA news agency reported that a security officer had been killed in an attack in the Tal Kalakh area. In March, sectarian massacres in the Alawite heartland on Syria's Mediterranean coast saw security forces and allied groups kill more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, according to the Observatory's figures. The Islamist-led government accused Assad loyalists of sparking the violence by launching coordinated attacks on security forces. The government has since launched an inquiry.
