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Hundreds of people have been killed in Syria last year after clashes between the government and pro-Assad forces escalated into sectarian violence, becoming the biggest threat to the country’s stability since the end of the Civil War.
Many of the targets were Alawis, a member of a minority sect that former President Bashar al-Assad belongs to and controls the top ranks of security forces in the former government.
Although estimates were varied, War Surveillance Syrian Human Rights Surveillance reported that more than 1,000 people had been killed as of Sunday. Most of them are civilians. The Financial Times were unable to independently verify numbers.
Syrian Defense Ministry said clashes were still ongoing on parts of the coast on Sunday morning.
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharah called for calm on Sunday. Sharaa filmed and filmed at a mosque in Damascus’ Mezeze district, saying what happened was within the “expected challenges” and called for coexistence. “We can live together in this country, God is happy,” he said.
The chaos began on Thursday after an armed faction loyal to Assad, who called for a “uprising” in December when Islamist rebels led by Sharaa clashed with government security forces in December, calling for a “uprising” in the coastal states and in Latakia, the former Assad base.
According to residents and rights groups, this escalated to intercommunal violence and sectarian killings in order to arrive faithfully to the interim government and crush the pro-Assad forces by reaching loyal to the interim government.
Many of the former rebel factions currently in charge of security under the new interim government that disbanded Assad’s troops have denounced the Alawians for the atrocities that took place during the war.
The Alawian residents told the FT that they were evacuated in their homes, that relatives and neighbors were either killed or that they were fleeing fears of further attacks.
Annas Haider, an Alawian translator in Banyas, a city in southern Latakia, said his aunt learned from his aunt that his 69-year-old uncle took him to the roof of his apartment on Friday and executed him along with other men who live in the building.
“I thought the sounds we were hearing were filming in the air or in celebration, but no, all of these shots were on the people,” he said.
On Saturday, Haider was preparing to escape, so he received a call from another aunt begging him to help his son. Haider leaves the neighborhood in the car of a Sunni friend who had evacuated him and the other family members overnight.
This escalation poses one of the most serious threats to date to the legitimacy of Syria’s transitional government to date.
It also highlights the scale of the challenges faced in unifying and controlling a nation that has armed and armed factional forces, home to multiple denominations, including unemployed former soldiers in Assad’s regime.
Around the time of the first attack, a group called the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria issued a statement pledging to overthrow the government. The group is led by former commander of the brutal 4th Division of Assad Army, once led by Bashar’s brother Mahar.
Without a unified national security force, Sharaa incorporates an armed opposition patchwork under the Ministry of Defense earlier this year, but coordination, training and ideology are very different.
Mohammad Sarah Sharathi, a Sunni Sheikh from Latakia, said there was widespread dissatisfaction with the lack of accountability for those who worked in the old government.
“We’ve been telling the government, ‘This or that person was working against us for the sake of the administration.’ We know who they are, but they ask for evidence,” he said. “The new government is telling us to be patient, but Sunnis have been suppressed for 60 years. … Since March 6th, people no longer want forgiveness. They want to hold everyone accountable.”
Coastal area residents who spoke with the FT highlighted the differences in what they called extremist factions and the behavior of general security forces related to the more disciplined Ministry of Home Affairs, but said it would be up to the new authorities to line up all of them.
The faction “is not an illegal gang. Technically, they are law, they are the military,” Haider said. “These were groups who probably appeared in a meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa and agreed to be part of the Ministry of Defense.”
