Syria descends into violence: Who are the Alawites who are being killed in hundreds?

Syria is witnessing its deadliest eruption of violence since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December. More than 1,300 people have been killed in clashes between the Syrian security forces and loyalists of the ousted president. The most casualties are among the once-influential Alawites.

The clashes erupted on Thursday (March 6), posing another tough challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after the insurgents came to power by overthrowing Assad.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in addition to 830 civilians killed, mostly in shootings from close distance, 125 government security force members and 148 militants with armed groups affiliated with Assad were killed.

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More than 1,300 people have been killed in 72 hours, according to the organisation which described the violence as “the largest collective act of revenge in the coast and its mountains” with the death toll expected to rise.

The killings are concentrated in the coastal areas of Tartus and Latakia, which are home to the Alawite community , a small Islamic sect to which the Assads belong.

Why did clashes erupt in Syria?

Since the downfall of the Assad regime , there has been a rise in sectarian attacks against Alawites, who exerted influence in Syria for over 50 years. The assaults continued despite promises from Syria’s interim president that the new leadership would carve out a political future for the country that includes and represents all its diverse ethnic and minority communities.

The tensions escalated after armed Assad loyalists ambushed Syrian security around Latakia and Jableh, killing 13 personnel. The pro-Assad Alawite gunmen overwhelmed government security forces and later took control of Qardaha, Assad’s hometown, as Damascus scrambled to bring in reinforcements.

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Ghiath Dallah, a former brigadier general in Assad’s army, announced a new rebellion against the current government, saying he was establishing the “Military Council for the Liberation of Syria”.

According to reports, former security officers of the Assad regime, who refused to give up arms, are now forming a resistance group.

In the government crackdown that followed, hundreds of civilians were killed, mostly the Alawites. Government forces have reportedly joined hands with armed Sunni fighters and are targeting the sect, taking revenge for atrocities it committed during the Assad regime.

Who are the Alawites?

The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam and makes up 10 per cent of the Syrian population. A majority of the country is Sunni Muslims.

The Assad family belongs to the minority sect. An oppressed minority, the Alawites rose in prominence and started controlling Syria in 1970 when Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafiz al-Assad staged a coup, sidelining the Sunnis.

Under Hafiz al-Assad, Alawites secured important positions in military and security forces. They allied with Sunni merchant classes in Damascus and Aleppo and expanded their influence on the economy as well. This sect was seen as the elite within the Syrian bureaucracy and security apparatus.

Bashar Al-Assad took over in 2000 after the death of his father. The younger Assad opened up the economy but the benefits were limited to the elites.

In Syria, there has been growing anger against the Assads. Protests began against the then-president in 2011 during the Arab Spring , which saw dictators being toppled. However, the Assad regime cracked down on protesters and the agitation led to the civil war.

Many in Syria believed that while the Sunnis were a majority, the power was concentrated in the hands of the Alawites. As the civil war intensified, militant groups emerging across the country treated the sect as an affiliate of Bashar al-Assad and his key military allies, Russia and Iran.

Why are Alawites being targeted?

A rebel alliance led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) , a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, ousted Assad three months ago. It is a coalition of northern-Syria-based Sunni Islamist insurgents.

HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa is the new government’s interim president. He promised that the country would transition to a system that includes Syria’s mosaic of religious and ethnic groups under fair elections, but sceptics have been questioning whether that will happen.

Sharaa’s government deployed armed forces on Syria’s Meditterean shore, which was a stronghold of the Assads to assert control. Now armed Sunni factions have launched revenge killings against Alawites.

Electricity and drinking water were cut off in large areas around Latakia, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Meanwhile, the Syria Campaign and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which both advocated against Assad after the civil war began in 2011, said Saturday that both security forces and pro-Assad gunmen were “carrying out mass executions and systematic killings”.

Residents of Alawite villages and towns spoke to The Associated Press about killings during which gunmen shot members of the sect, the majority of them men, in the streets or at the gates of their homes. Two residents in the coastal region said that many homes from Alawite families were looted and set on fire. They spoke from their hideouts on condition of anonymity, fearing for their lives.

Videos on social media, verified by foreign media, showed blood-soaked bodies on the streets of Latakia. Military vehicles are seen moving through the countryside amid explosions and gunfire and soldiers dropping bombs from a helicopter, reports NBC.

Residents of Baniyas, one of the coastal towns worst hit by the violence, said bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them. One resident said that the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbours killed Friday at close range.

Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of Baniyas who fled with his family on Friday, said that at least 20 of his neighbours and colleagues in one neighbourhood of Baniyas where Alawites lived, were killed, some of them in their shops, or their homes.

What is the Syrian government saying?

Damascus blamed “individual actions” for the widespread violence against civilians and said government security forces were responding to the gunmen loyal to the former government.

Sharaa has said that he would hold anyone responsible for harming civilians accountable. In a speech aired on national TV and posted on social media, he also vowed to hunt down Assad loyalists.

“Today, as we stand at this critical moment, we find ourselves facing a new danger… attempts by remnants of the former regime and their foreign backers to incite new strife and drag our country into a civil war, aiming to divide it and destroy its unity and stability,” the interim president said on Sunday.

“We affirm that we will hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians or harming our people, who overstepped the powers of the state or exploits authority to achieve his own ends.”

Calling for peace, he said, “We have to preserve national unity… we can live together. Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival.”

He announced on Telegram that an “independent committee” had been formed to “investigate the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them”.

What the violence means for Syria

One of the big challenges for the interim government is to unify Syria’s ethnic and religious groups. The escalation of violence reflects a failure on the part of Sharaa to fulfil the promises he has made and threatens stability in the country.

Sharaa has lobbied to convince the United States and Europe to lift sanctions to pave the way for economic recovery to pull millions of Syrians out of poverty and make the country viable again. Washington and Europe are concerned that lifting sanctions before Syria transitions into an inclusive political system could pave the way for another chapter of autocratic rule. Now the ongoing violence is only going to increase the doubts of the West.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday urged Syrian authorities to “hold the perpetrators of these massacres” accountable. He said the US “stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities”, as he condemned “radical Islamist terrorists” behind the “massacres of minorities”.

With inputs from agencies