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The Guardian
15-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘The streets are empty, no one dares go outside': Syria's Alawites terrorised by revenge killings
When armed men entered Hayan's house last Friday, he thought he was going to be killed like his neighbours before him. Militants dragged him outside, threw him to the ground and started shooting right above his head, making it so he could no longer hear the insults they lobbed at him for being a member of the country's minority Islamic Alawite sect. Hayan was lucky – they chose merely to scare not kill him – but by the time the rampage finally ended, 25 residents of the Alawite town of Salhab, northwest Syria, were dead. They included a 90-year-old local religious figure whom militants killed after forcing him to watch them murder his son. Such massacres had become a feature of Syria's 14-year civil war, but Salhab's violence last week took place during some of the country's deadliest days since the beginning of the war itself. Besides the high death toll, what marked these killings as different — and a dark omen for the country's future — is that many were carried out by militants nominally a part of the new Syrian army created by the country's new president. The massacres brought into question the ability of Syria's government to control its ranks and the challenges of reining in the patchwork of militias that currently control the country. Fighting started when fighters loyal to ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad launched a coordinated attack on Syrian government forces across the country's coast on 6 March, prompting the government to call for help. Thousands of armed individuals and several rebel groups answered the call. The incensed militias and crowds carried out a wave of revenge attacks against members of Syria's Alawite community, the same sect from which Assad hailed, though most had nothing to do with the former regime. Massacres in most Alawite villages ensued. In total, the four days of fighting left more than 1,000 people dead, including 745 civilians, many of whom were killed in revenge attacks targeting the sect. In addition, Assad loyalists killed 211 members of the Syrian security forces and 228 civilians. Experts have pointed to two factions, Abu Amsha's Sultan Suleiman Shah brigade and the Hamzat division, as being responsible for the bulk of killing of civilians and unarmed prisoners during the explosion of violence on Syria's coast last week. Both rebel groups were previously affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Both factions and their leaders are under US sanctions for alleged serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture. Abu Amsha said in a post on x that his division adhered to orders from Syria's ministry of defence and said that news of their participation in massacres was 'propaganda.' He added that every member of his faction are 'subject to the law and accountability.' 'The vast majority of the violations were committed by Abu Amsha's [faction] and Hamzat. Lots of residents were asking government security forces to defend them from those factions,' said Fadel Abdulghany, the founder of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). Along with dozens of other armed groups, the two factions have only recently been integrated into Syria's new army, led by the now-disbanded Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS, the leader of the rebel coalition which ousted the Assad regime on 8 December, dissolved all armed factions in the country, including itself, and announced they would be integrated into the new Syrian army. In practice, however, the government has struggled to integrate military factions and exercises limited control over them. 'Currently it appears that the integration of SNA factions into the ministry of defence has only occurred at a symbolic level,' said Alexander McKeever, researcher and author of a weekly newsletter on northern Syria. 'The institutional ties are weak so HTS's tools in terms of cracking down are limited,' he added. Syria's president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has promised that all those who killed or abused civilians on Syria's coast last week will be held accountable, even if they are allies of HTS. 'We will hold accountable, with full decisiveness, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians, mistreats civilians, exceeds the state's authority or exploits power for personal gain. No one will be above the law,' Sharaa said. It's unclear if Sharaa can indeed hold accountable some of the very same factions who helped bring him to power, for fear of alienating militias who could provoke instability or even conflict in Syria. If he does not punish those militias who massacred civilians, he will alienate many citizens of Syria, who would be reminded of regime figures slaughtering their countrymen with impunity. The slaughter of civilians on Syria's coast has also given the international community pause about lifting sanctions. Syria has been under US sanctions since 1979, which intensified after the Assad regime's brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011. Syria's new authorities have made the lifting of sanctions one of its top priorities, to help its ailing economy and allow it to build a functional state with a professional army. The killing of Alawite civilians deeply disturbed evangelical members of the Trump White House, who viewed the protection of Syria's religious minorities as a key benchmark for the new government. 'They only have one agenda about Syria and that's Christians. They don't care if the rest of the country goes to hell. And they were furious about what happened last week,' said Kamal Alam, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who advises the evangelical members of the Trump team on Syria and support to Christians in the Levant. Alam added that after last week's killings, these members of the Trump administration have sought to add the protection of all minorities to their portfolio, not just Syria's Christians. This could in turn, blunt the efforts of congresspeople who have been trying to get US sanctions lifted. To many members of Syria's Alawite community, the damage has already been done. Almost 11,000 Syrians have fled into Lebanon since the violence on the coast, according to the UN. 'The streets are empty. No one dares go outside. All of us here cannot sleep from the fear that we will be killed in our beds,' Hayan said.
The Guardian
10-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Deadly clashes between Syrian security and Assad loyalists: what we know so far
Clashes between Syrian security services and fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime erupted on Wednesday, kicking off five days of still-ongoing fighting which has left more than 1,000 dead, including 745 civilians, according to a war monitor. The clashes, some of the deadliest the country has seen since the beginning of its civil war in 2011, were the biggest challenge Syria's new authorities has faced since taking power in December. Civilians, mainly from the minority Islamic Alawite sect, faced a wave of revenge killings from Syrian government forces and Assad loyalists. How did the violence start and who was behind the killing of civilians? On 8 December 2024, rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled over Syria for 53 years. HTS then assumed power, forming a transitional government led by the group's former leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who used to go by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. Sharaa assured the country as its new president that the rights of religious minorities, including those from the Alawite sect from which the Assad family hailed, would be respected under the new government. Since taking power however, incidences of revenge killings have happened sporadically in Alawite villages, which the Syrian government called 'individual cases' and promised to investigate. Syrian security forces also faced continual attacks by fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime. Nonetheless, the situation in north-west Syria, and specifically the coastal provinces which were Assad's former stronghold, remained mostly calm until last week. On Wednesday, Syrian security forces and checkpoints were attacked simultaneously across Syria's coast by Assad regime loyalists. Syria's ministry of defence said that the attacks were 'coordinated and premediated', while an advisor to the minister of foreign affairs said the attack involved up to 4,000 Assad loyalists. A former Assad security officer, Miqdad Fatiha, is thought to be playing a leading role in the operation. Chaos and confusion reigned for a few hours while security forces, caught by surprise by the attack, were overwhelmed and killed en masse. Assad regime loyalists began firing at cars randomly, attacking civilians and burning public buildings, such as police stations. Syria's authorities issued a call for reinforcements and thousands of fighters from across the country poured into the coastal provinces. Civilians, many of whom were armed, also joined the military convoys. Security forces, buoyed by reinforcements, began to fight Assad regime loyalists and push them back from villages in Syria's coast. The loyalists retreated into the countryside, burning state property and killing as they went. A resident of the Qusour neighbourhood of Baniyas in the Latakia countryside described how Assad loyalists fled from Jableh to Baniyas on Thursday night. 'They hid in the hospital behind my house and started shooting at public security, some of them went first to the police station and burned it,' the resident said, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation. As Syrian government forces and armed civilians began to move into Alawite villages in north-west Syria, videos of abuses began to surface. Civilians began to report wholesale killings by security forces, in accounts corroborated by rights monitoring groups. The resident from Qusour described how a faction consisting of Chechen foreign fighters came to their neighbourhood after battling Assad loyalists on Thursday and entered their home, threatening to burn it down unless they gave them their car keys and mobile phone. On Friday, a group of Syrian fighters entered their building and rounded up the Alawite men in the building, taking them to the roof and shooting them. 'They took a 16-year-old boy, he had a nervous breakdown, telling them not to kill him. They didn't say anything, they just took him and killed him,' said a second resident from Baniyas. Other residents of coastal villages reported knowing dozens of people who were killed. Videos seen by the Guardian showed fighters wearing fatigues executing unarmed people at point blank range, as well as dozens of corpses wearing civilian clothing piled on top of each other in the village of Mukhtariya, Latakia. According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), which employs exhaustive documentation standards and is considered independent: Assad regime loyalists killed 383 people, including 211 civilians and 172 Syrian security forces, while Syrian security forces killed 396 people, which includes both civilians and disarmed fighters. Killing disarmed fighters is against international humanitarian law. The statistics do not account for the number of Assad regime loyalists killed. The vast majority of extrajudicial – unlawful – killings of civilians and prisoners by Syrian security forces were committed by two specific factions, as well as individuals who joined military convoys, according to the SNHR. Specifically, the two factions which were responsible for the majority of the killings of civilians were the Abu Amsha and Hamzat divisions. Abu Amsha's faction and the Hamzat division are both rebel groups previously affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Both factions and their leaders are under US sanctions for alleged serious human rights abuses including rape and torture. Both factions are among the disparate groups that the new Syrian government is trying to incorporate into its national army. They are nominally under the auspices of the new state, with Abu Amsha appointed head of Hama province's military brigade. However, in reality, the state exercises limited control over them. According to the founder of SNHR, Fadel Abdulghany, these factions would commit abuses in villages until HTS security forces arrived, upon which they would move to the neighbouring town until they were driven out once again. At least four residents of villages in Latakia described a similar process of factions evading HTS security forces. In a speech on Sunday, Sharaa vowed to hunt down the Assad regime loyalists who sparked the violence and hold those who killed civilians accountable. 'We will hold accountable, with full decisiveness, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians, mistreats civilians, exceeds the state's authority or exploits power for personal gain. No one will be above the law,' Sharaa said. He announced the formation of a committee to issue a report on the clashes and the ensuing violence in north-west Syria, as well as a committee to address the Alawite community's concerns. Holding perpetrators to account and ensuring real transitional justice in war-torn Syria is seen as key to the country's recovery from its 14-year civil war and the success of the new government.
The Guardian
09-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
More than 1,000 people killed in two days of clashes in Syria, war monitor says
More than 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, were killed in the two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and fighters loyal to the former Assad regime and ensuing revenge killings, a war monitor has said, one of the highest death tolls in Syria since 2011. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, said 745 civilians were killed mostly execution-style, while 125 Syrian security forces and 148 Assad loyalists were killed. Death tolls from the two days of fighting have varied wildly, with some estimates putting the final death toll even higher. Fighting began on Thursday after fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime ambushed security forces in Jableh, in the coastal Latakia province. The wide-ranging, coordinated assault was the biggest challenge to the country's Islamist authorities so far, and came three months after opposition fighters led by Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. To crush the rebellion, the Syrian government called for re-enforcements, with thousands of fighters converging on Syria's coast from all over the country. Though fighters are nominally under the auspices of the new Syrian government, militias still persist, some of which have been implicated in past human rights abuses and are relatively undisciplined. The Syrian government has insisted that 'individual actions' led to the killing of civilians and said the massive influx of fighters on the coast led to human rights violations. In a speech on Friday, Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa said that 'anyone who harms civilians will face severe punishment.' Videos showed dozens of people in civilian clothes piled up, dead, in the town of al-Mukhtariya, where more than 40 people were killed at one time, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Other videos showed fighters wearing security uniforms executing people point blank, ordering men to bark like dogs and beating captives. The Guardian was not able to independently verify these videos. The Syrian coast is heavily populated by the minority Islamic Alawite sect, from which the deposed Syrian president hailed, though most Alawites were not associated with the Assad regime. Syria's new authorities promised Alawites that they would be safe under their rule and that there would be no revenge killings. Government security forces' killings of hundreds of mainly Alawite civilians this week, however, have sent waves of fear through the religious minority community. A man from the town of Snobar, Latakia, detailed how gunmen killed at least 14 of his neighbours who were all from the Arris family, including the execution of a 75-year-old father and his three sons in front of the family's mother. 'After they killed the father and his boys, they asked the mother to take her gold off, or they would kill her,' said the man who was close to the family but spoke under the condition of anonymity for his safety. Another resident of Latakia said that power and water to the area had been cut off for the past day, and that they had been sheltering in their house, scared of the militants on the streets. 'There's no water and no power for more than 24 hours, the factions are killing anyone who appears in front of them, the corpses are piled up in the streets. This is collective punishment,' the Latakia resident said. The UN envoy for Syria, Gier Pedersen, urged civilians to be protected on Friday, while France condemned what they said was violence targeting 'civilians because of their faith.' The French foreign ministry also urged Syria's authorities to make sure that 'independent investigations can shed light on these crimes and that the perpetrators are sentenced.' Rights groups said that a real commitment to transitional justice and an inclusive government was key to preventing Syria from spiralling into a cycle of violence. Syria's current transitional authorities are set to announce a new government this month, which will be scrutinised closely for being representative of Syria's religious and ethnic diversity after this week's violence.
