Latest news with #Alawites
Shafaq News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Shafaq News
Amnesty International: 36 Alawite women abducted in Syria
Shafaq News – Damascus Dozens of Alawite women and girls have been abducted across central and coastal Syria in recent months, Amnesty International said on Monday, warning of growing fear and impunity as authorities fail to respond. The group documented eight cases since February across the provinces of Latakia, Tartus, Homs, and Hama. Although families reported the incidents to the authorities, police and security forces have largely failed to investigate. In two instances, officials placed blame on the families, while only two victims were eventually released safely. Agnès Callamard, Amnesty 's Secretary-General, described the kidnappings as 'deeply unsettling for the Alawite community,' highlighting that women and girls now fear leaving their homes unaccompanied. She also urged Syrian authorities to step up efforts and prevent gender-based violence, further calling for swift, and impartial investigations into the abductions. Despite the scale of the violence, Amnesty spokesperson Yasser Arwanhan emphasized that Syrian authorities maintain they have received no reports of abducted girls. Tensions escalated in March, when sectarian violence erupted across Syria's coastal region, leaving approximately 1,700 people dead over three days—mostly Alawites—according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A government committee later recorded 1,426 victims. However, the Syrian government maintained these incidents were isolated, rejecting claims they were systematic or sectarian.
Gulf Insider
3 days ago
- Politics
- Gulf Insider
US Envoy Blasted For Claiming Syrian Government Forces Not Involved In Sectarian Executions
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based rights group that tracks violence in Syria, has released a statement criticizing US Ambassador Tom Barrack for claiming Syrian government forces were not involved in the mass executions of civilians in Suwayda, southern Syria. Seven days of clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin who were backed by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government forces left 1,399 people dead, including 196 civilians executed by gunmen affiliated with the Syrian defense and interior ministries, according to the SOHR. Barrack, who serves as the ambassador to Turkey and as a special envoy to Syria, claimed Syrian government troops didn't enter Suwayda during the violence. 'The Syrian troops haven't gone into the city. These atrocities that are happening are not happening by the Syrian regime troops. They're not even in the city because they agreed with Israel that they would not go in,' he told Reuters . Barrack also claimed that the fighters who entered the city may have been ISIS members disguised as government troops, though HTS and ISIS share a similar ideology. In response, the SOHR said that it 'strongly rejects and condemns' Barrack's comments. 'SOHR considers these statements to lack even the minimum standards of objectivity and neutrality. They not only represent a serious deviation from the envoy's expected role as a mediator working toward peace and stability among Syrians, but also open the door for further massacres to be committed against other Syrian communities, similar to what has happened to the Druze and Alawites in Suwayda and other regions,' the SOHR said. 'SOHR affirms that it possesses documented evidence, including video footage and credible field testimonies, confirming that the horrific violations, including the execution of civilians, the throwing of young men from upper floors and the killing of a Syrian-American citizen on sectarian grounds, took place on the day Syrian Ministry of Defense personnel entered Suwayda city,' the group added. The SOHR said that Barrack should not act as a 'defense attorney' for 'an interim authority that has failed to protect Syrians and whose media and key figures have contributed to fueling sectarian and regional conflict.' The SOHR has detailed many of the executions in Suwayda, including one where Hosam Saraya, a 35-year-old Syrian American, was shot to death along with seven of his relatives, a massacre that was filmed and posted online. The SOHR also detailed the killing of Pastor Khaled Maher Mazhar, a Christian convert from the Druze religion who was massacred along with 11 members of his family, including six women. The group said the family was killed by members of the Syrian Defense Ministry. 'The perpetrators opened fire directly on everyone inside the house, even extending the killing to include the family's dog, an act that reflects the extreme brutality of the massacre,' the SOHR said. First they killed the Alawites, now they kill the Druze. The entire population of Syria will be killed by ISIS. A HTS (ISIS) fighter telling he will kill all the Druze, he has the patch of ISIS on his shoulder. In the background you can hear the shooting going on…West is quilty — sonja van den ende (@SonjaEnde) April 30, 2025 Barrack and other US officials have embraced the new Syrian government and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, despite his al-Qaeda past. HTS formed in 2017 as an offshoot of the al-Nusra Front, which was al-Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria until Sharaa rebranded to gain international support. HTS took power in Damascus following a lightning offensive that ended with the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad. The US had foreknowledge of the offensive and helped a US-backed militia take part in the assault from its base at al-Tanf in southern Syria.
Ya Libnan
3 days ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Don't be fooled by Al-Sharaa's business suit, he is still a jihadist
File: Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt shakes hands with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 22, 2024. Despite his hollow promises, Al-Sharaa has failed miserably in protecting Syria's vulnerable minorities and managed to drive a wedge between the Druze in Syria and in Lebanon. The last thing the Syrians want to see is another dictator like Bashar al-Assad REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi The recent massacre targeting the Syrian Druze community in Sweida , a small religious minority group resulted in the killing of over 600 members including 140 women and children according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa's forces and allied militias have carried out the massacres in Sweida province This eruption of violence was an eerie reminder of a series of violence that has been launched against the Syrian religious communities and ethnic minorities, since the current regime has come to power. The Syrian National Army (SNA) which is also part of a coalition led by President Ahmad Al-Shaara's group Hayat Taheer Al-Sham (HTS) attacked Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in North-East Syria in December 2024. In particular, fierce fighting along the Tishreen Dam became the focal point. In March, indiscriminate killings of Alawites were carried out in the Syrian coastal areas especially in the city of Banias. While exact figures remain difficult to verify, more than 1,300 individuals, most of them Alawites, lost their lives. In some cases, entire families were summarily executed. These atrocities were solely directed against the Alawite minority and instigated by militias affiliated with the new regime, ostensibly as part of a response to attacks in Latakia and Tartous from armed groups affiliated with the deposed Assad regime. In the name of fighting former President Bashar Al-Assad loyalist collective punishment was given to the Alawite community. In June this year a church in the Syrian capital of Damascus was rocked by a suicide explosion, in this deadly attack 25 people were killed. The Syrian authorities blamed the attack on the Islamic State (ISIS) group. However, a lesser- known Sunni extremist group, Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, claimed responsibility for this attack. Many analysts believe this little-known group has deep links with HTS as their relations with HTS stretch back to before the Bashar Al-Assad If we look at the pattern of all these past attacks, it clearly indicates that they were carried out on the instructions or at least with tacit approval of the current Syrian regime. The objective of these attacks was to subdue the minorities through terror, so they don't demand their full political rights. The current Syrian regime got emboldened by the recent lifting of western sanctions and informal recognition it got from Arab states and the United States. In May 2025 the US president met Ahmad Al-Shaara in the Saudi capital Riyadh and expressed admiration for him. He went further and described Al-Shaara as a strongman and declared him a 'Tough guy with a very strong past.' The US president should have ordered a thorough research to dug more into the past of Al-Shaara as his past is one marked by links to al-Qaeda, and ISIS Al Sharaa even managed to fool Lebanon Druze leader Walid Jumblatt , who was the first Lebanese official to visit Damascus and meet with Al- Sharaa despite the objection of the Druze leadership in Syria. Jumblatt and his team were completely fooled by Al Sharaa as recent events in Syria indicate . Yesterday he went as far as attacking Syrian Druze leader Sheikh Hikmet Al Hijri, who is the most popular Druze spiritual leader in Syria and accused the Druze of Sweida of massacring the Bedouin tribes, an unfounded claim that no one else ever made. Only Federalism Can Save Syria Despite his hollow promises, Ahmed al-Sharaa has failed miserably in protecting Syria's vulnerable minorities. His brief rule has not ushered in a new era of inclusion or reconciliation, but one of betrayal and brutality. Many minorities across Syria—from Christians to Alawites, Druze to Kurds—no longer see Sharaa as a protector but as a former ISIS affiliate in a business suit. Since unilaterally appointing himself as Syria's interim president, thousands from these communities have been killed. Nowhere is his failure more glaring than in Sweida, where government forces dispatched to quell violence between Sunni Bedouins and the Druze ended up siding with the Bedouins. Instead of restoring order, they executed Druze civilians at gunpoint, looted homes, and set them ablaze. These actions confirm what many Syrians have long feared: Sharaa has no intention to govern for all Syrians—only to consolidate power under the guise of security. In this climate of deep mistrust and sectarian tension, the idea of a strong, centralized government led by one faction is no longer tenable. Syria needs a new path forward—one that gives every group a stake in the country's future while ensuring local governance, autonomy, and protection. That path is federalism. Federalism is a system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and smaller political units—such as states, provinces, or cantons. Each unit maintains a degree of autonomy to govern its own affairs, particularly in areas like education, policing, and culture, while still being part of a unified national framework. It is a model that has proven successful in multi-ethnic and multi-religious countries. Perhaps the best example is Switzerland . Despite its linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity, Switzerland has remained peaceful, democratic, and united—not in spite of its differences, but because it embraced them. The Swiss Confederation consists of 26 cantons, each with its own constitution, government, and even police force. Yet all are bound together under a federal government that handles foreign policy, national defense, and major economic policies. It is a country where French, German, Italian, and Romansh speakers coexist harmoniously—not because they were forced to live under a single ruler, but because they were empowered to manage their own affairs within a shared federal system.
DW
4 days ago
- Politics
- DW
Are Syria's Kurds next at risk of sectarian violence? – DW – 07/26/2025
Following deadly clashes against the Druze and Alawites minorities, and amid the planned dissolution of the Kurdish PKK, Syria's Kurds are at a critical juncture. To what extent do Turkey, Israel and the US have a say? In the aftermath of the latest violence against minorities in Syria, military representatives of Syria's largest minority, the around 2.5 million Kurds, have now clarified that for them, "disarmament is a red line." On Thursday, Farhad Shami, the spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told the local TV channel al-Youm TV that "those betting on our capitulation will lose, the tragic events have made that clear." He was referring to the deadly violence between Bedouin Arab tribes and the third-largest religious minority, the Druze, which rattled the country earlier this month. Stating the SDF's "red line" is all the more significant, as Syria's Kurds are also politically at a critical juncture. A planned meeting on Thursday in Paris about key details of an earlier peace deal between the Kurds and Syria's interim government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa was postponed, and has not yet been rescheduled. The sticking points of the agreement, meant to be implemented by the end of the year, are the integration of the Kurdish forces into Damascus' national army and the authority over Syria's Kurdish region with its border crossings to Iraq and Turkey, as well as the region's oil fields and prisons with thousands of "Islamic State" fighters. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Meanwhile, a Syrian government source told the news agency AFP that "using the events in Sweida or along the coast [where violence against the Alawite minority took place in spring this year] to justify refusing to return to the state fold is a manipulation of public opinion." "A genuine national dialogue cannot happen under the threat of weapons or with backing from foreign powers," the source added. On Wednesday, however, The Associated Press news agency reported that Damascus had requested Turkey's support to strengthen Syrian defense capabilities. Ankara is known as fierce supporter of Syria's interim president. Turkey also considers the Kurds in Syria to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, which is categorized as terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and US. Therefore, Turkey would like to see the Syrian Kurdish forces either integrate in Syria's national army, or to lay down their weapons along with the recently announced end of the PKK and the symbolic weapons' destruction ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan on July 11. Turkey has also been trying to clinch a defense agreement with Damascus. But such a deal would reportedly include establishing Turkish military bases on Syrian territory, presumably in Syria's northeast where the Kurdish population resides under the administration of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. According to the AP agency, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has warned Kurdish and other groups in Syria against exploiting the tensions in Syria's south to pursue autonomy. He also stated that any attempt to divide Syria would be viewed as a direct threat to Turkey's national security and could prompt intervention. While it remains to be seen if, or to what extent, the Syrian Kurds will maintain their semi-autonomy in Syria's northeast within the frame of the peace deal with Damascus, it is the general quest for autonomy that differentiates the Kurds from other factions in the country. However, all have called on Damascus to uphold their rights as minorities in the country. "If minorities such as the Druze, Alawites and Christians are not granted inclusive rights, the Kurds will not give up any of their specific demands either," Mohamed Noureddine, a Beirut-based Middle East professor at the Lebanese University, told DW. "Unless the administration of Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus establishes a dialogue and adopts a constitution that treats all citizens equally, there will be no stability," he said. Al-Sharaa has repeatedly said he will uphold the rights of minorities and guarantee protection, although not all the factions of his government support this stance. Recent attacks on minorities were allegedly exacerbated by governmental forces. "If the Kurds feel significantly threatened by Turkish offerings of security sector support to Damascus, I could easily see Israel taking advantage of that," said Natasha Hall, a foreign policy expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We already know there's been a relationship between Kurds in various countries and Israel, as part of Israel's sort of grander plan to establish relationships with minorities across the Middle East," she told DW. Earlier this month, Israel targeted the headquarters of the Syrian Defense Ministry in central Damascus and government forces in Sweida in support of the Druze minority. "We could see an insurgency in the foreseeable future unless the US decides to actually hold the hand of various warring parties and support security sector reform and the unification of the army," said Hall. In her view, this would also include the safe handoff of the US-backed but Kurdish-run prisons with some 9,000 suspected members of the "Islamic State" terror group, along with some 40,000 IS fighters and their families in Kurdish-led detention camps. If the Kurds and Damascus were aligned in these matters, Hall believes it could also hold Israel back and allay the concerns of the Kurds and the Turks — but only with stringent security agreements and guarantees of rights, she added. "The question is whether or not the administration in Washington has any kind of patience for those details," she said. After 14 years of civil war, a lot needs to be done in Syria's post-conflict environment to address its different factions and shattered economy. "Balancing the different ideologies in warring factions in Syria would be challenging for any Syrian leader," said Hall. "Even if you were talking about someone with a very clean record, not Ahmed al-Sharaa [who used to have links to Islamist extremist groups before he became the country's interim president in December], this would be a very difficult balancing act, to say the least." However, in her view, for Syria and all of the Syrian minorities it is not just a "nice thing" to have national reconciliation. "It is something that is very necessary to ensure stability and peace for the future."
Rudaw Net
4 days ago
- Politics
- Rudaw Net
Turkey calls on SDF to expedite integration with Damascus
Also in Middle East Turkey says SDF must prove commitment to integration deal with Damascus Turkey accuses Israel of trying to 'divide Syria,' vows to intervene Iraq says Turkey ready to renew, expand oil export deal PKK disarmament could be completed within four months: Kurdish lawmaker A+ A- ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Friday called on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to speed up their integration into the interim government in Damascus. Negotiations between the SDF and Damascus, however, appear to have hit an impasse with the Kurdish-led force wary about the Syrian government, which it accused of making 'unacceptable' demands. 'It's important that the SDF, without wasting time and willingly, reaches an agreement with the central government, takes genuine and unambiguous steps to implement this agreement, and that Turkey be held as a witness for security,' Fidan told Turkish broadcaster NTV on Friday, referring to the March 10 agreement between the SDF and Damascus. That agreement outlines the future of the SDF and the region it controls in northeast Syria (Rojava). While parts of the agreement have been implemented, key provisions - such as integrating the US-backed SDF into Syrian state forces - remain contested. Fidan said Ankara also expects the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF, to disarm. 'It's unacceptable for armed structures to continue their existence in this country by using certain things as excuses. We expect the YPG to lay down its arms,' he said. Turkey considers the YPG a Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has decided to disarm and dissolve itself as part of talks with Ankara to end decades of war in return of political and cultural rights for Kurds. There have been at least two meetings between SDF chief Mazloum Abdi and Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa since Bashar al-Assad's regime was ousted in December. Recent massacres of Alawites and Druze by forces affiliated with or supported by Damascus have concerned Kurds and made them reluctant to give up their weapons. "They ask us to surrender all our weapons and dissolve the SDF. In return, they will make us commanders and ministers. We have no ambition to become commanders in the army or assume positions like minister. We are struggling for the existence of this nation," Farhad Shami, head of SDF's media centre, told SDF-affiliated Ronahi TV on Friday. He said that the mass killings of Alawites in the coastal areas and Druze in southern Syria have convinced the SDF that only weapons can protect the people of Rojava. Shami noted that they have conveyed this stance to US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack. The US and France have been engaged in talks with the SDF and Damascus to accelerate the implementation of the March 10 agreement, which is endorsed by Turkey. "The meetings are being held between two strong parties. If one of us is weak, why should we even meet? One would terminate the other and the story ends. We go to the meetings because we are strong. Attending the meetings does not mean we are surrendering ourselves. We are not affiliated with the Damascus government... and they have to understand this. They want the opposite. We are Syrians too but we have a project," Shami said. "They want us to take part in the army and government as individuals, not as an entity. We say this is not acceptable," he added. An unnamed senior official from the Syrian government told al-Ikhbariya TV on Thursday that Damascus will not accept the SDF retaining their weapons. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke with Abdi on Friday to confirm that Paris will host the next round of talks between the SDF and Damascus. Barrot also reiterated France's support for Syrian Kurds, according to the French foreign ministry. Earlier in the day, Barrot met with Barrack and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani. The meeting, in which they discussed negotiations between the SDF and Damascus, was 'very frank and productive,' according to the French ministry. Kurdish leaders have voiced concern over the centralization of power and the prominence of Islamic law in the transitional constitution adopted by Syria's interim government. They have repeatedly denied accusations that they favour separatism. Kurds held a national conference earlier this year that concluded with a call for decentralization.
