| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Alawite Rebellion Drowned in Blood: What's Happening in Syria Now |
| 2025-03-11 |
| [REGNUM] There are alarming news coming from the coast of Syria (where, as the reader will recall, we still have military bases). They report that first there were clashes with rebels, called by the new authorities in Damascus "remnants of the former Assad regime", and then mass killings of civilians (mostly Alawites) by militants of the new Syrian authorities from Idlib, Damascus and other cities. There are alarming news coming from the coast of Syria (where, as the reader will recall, we still have military bases). They report that first there were clashes with rebels, called by the new authorities in Damascus "remnants of the former Assad regime", and then mass killings of civilians (mostly Alawites) by militants of the new Syrian authorities from Idlib, Damascus and other cities. It is difficult to judge the scale of the executions, but judging by the videos and photos from the scene, I think we will end up with a figure of several thousand people. Experts note that such cruelty and mass murders have not been seen in Syria even under the control of ISIS*. In addition, about seven thousand local residents fled to the Khmeimim airbase under the protection of Russian military personnel. It was already difficult for the average Russian to follow the intricacies of Syria, and after Bashar al-Assad fled and Russia established contacts with the new authorities, relying on the bayonets of the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which we bombed and fought against, our citizens began to completely fail to understand who was bad, who was good, and why we were still hanging around there. The answer to this question is a separate dissertation, and perhaps more than one, but I will try to explain on my fingers what is happening there now. So, let's start from the moment of the fall of Bashar al-Assad's power and his flight to Moscow with his family and some members of the government. As is known, the Assad family itself was from the confessional Arab minority - the Alawites. The top of the Syrian state apparatus was also made up of Alawites. This did not begin under the Assads, but much earlier, when these territories were ruled by the French after the First World War. This is how the Assads actually managed to get to power. However, in the eyes of the Sunni majority in Syria, this did not justify them. Especially since the Sunnis did not consider the Alawites to be Muslims, and do not consider them to this day. The dominance of the Assad family and their Makhlouf relatives has not brought any special bonuses to the Alawites as a whole. According to the most conservative estimates, up to 2 million people in Syria currently belong to this confessional group, making up the majority of the coastal population. After the virtual collapse and desertion of the Syrian government army in 2011, the Alawites, as Assad's supporters, suffered the heaviest losses, fighting for him in all corners of Syria. For example, I met Alawite guys who served for ten years in the middle of the Syrian desert, hundreds of kilometers from the coast. By 2021, about every fourth or fifth family from the coastal provinces has lost someone on the front lines of the civil war. At the same time, the Alawites never received any preferences or privileges. Bashar al-Assad tried not to irritate the other ethnic and religious groups of the population in the already unstable and semi-occupied country. By mid-2021, the Alawites' simmering discontent began to boil over in the face of a sharp deterioration in the economic situation due to the introduction of new American sanctions. However, Assad was relentless, and the protests were dispersed, which later, of course, had an impact when Julani's group began to advance on Damascus. No one was particularly eager to defend Assad directly. It would seem that a heavy burden has been lifted from their shoulders, and the Alawites no longer have to carry the whole of Syria on their backs. But the other side of the coin has also emerged. Now, in the eyes of the Sunni group that had captured Damascus, all Alawites fell under suspicion and became dangerous a priori, not to mention the fact that for foreign radical jihadists (who had fought in both Al Qaeda* and ISIS*) who came to help overthrow Assad, the Alawites were and remain a perverted sect hiding behind Islam. The first weeks after the victory of the "Syrian revolution" inspired hope that the worst could be avoided. Especially since the Alawites of the coast surrendered to HTS* without resistance and even took part in the demolition of monuments to Assad. However, searches and arrests began immediately after this. To the credit of the new Syrian authorities, they began smoothly. Under lulling speeches about a "new free Syria," the repressions were justified by the "fight against the remnants of Assad’s Baathist regime" and the search for officials guilty of "crimes against the Syrian people." However, under this sauce, the newly organized security service began to ramp up the pace, shooting people not only on the coast, but also in other areas densely populated by Alawites and Christians - in Homs and Hama. When such stories surfaced online or in traditional media, the new authorities, by that time already recognized by almost all European and Gulf countries, justified themselves: these were isolated cases, and "investigations will certainly be conducted," and the guilty "will inevitably be punished." Time passed, but the attacks and murders did not stop, but rather became more frequent. Shortly before the current events, young people were shot in one of the villages, and Christian cemeteries were destroyed. The new government responded to complaints that these were unfortunate misunderstandings that would be investigated. Around the end of February, the euphoria from the overthrow of the "hated regime" finally subsided, and it became obvious to the Alawite population that they had been a priori designated as guilty for all the imaginary and real sins of the Assads, with all the ensuing consequences. It was around this point that a more or less organized underground movement began to take shape. It must be said that in parallel, rumors have been circulating at high-level foreign backroom negotiating platforms since early January that the power of Julani and the Idlib government is temporary and that everything will change soon. These rumors allegedly spread from American diplomats through their high-ranking Arab interlocutors. The catalyst was, of course, Israel, whose Minister of Defense declared that he would protect ethno-confessional minorities (meaning, of course, first and foremost the Druze) from the new Syrian authorities, who, according to him, were terrorists and remained terrorists. I repeat that the purges, searches, and murders did not stop all these months, they just did not happen on such a scale and smoothly. Very little information about them leaked into the public space. That is how, on March 6, another round of searches and attacks in rural areas in the province of Latakia provoked clashes and then a demonstration by the few Alawite underground groups that had managed to form. The first patrols of the security service of the new Syrian authorities were destroyed, even shelling the area with a mini-MLRS and bringing in a helicopter did not help. On the night of March 6-7, several dozen rebels captured some sections of the highway between Latakia and Tartus, taking some checkpoints and buildings at a run. There are now reports of hundreds of former Hayat Tahrir al-Sham* security personnel killed and 120-150 rebels eliminated. However, the very next day, several thousand former jihadists with heavy equipment, tanks and artillery were transferred from Idlib, Damascus and other cities. The rebels were first stopped and then driven back into the mountains. At the same time, the new authorities decided to take out their rage on the peaceful Alawite population. Groups of former jihadists began to break into houses and shoot entire families, women and children, filming and calmly posting it all on the Internet to the sound of characteristic cries or nasheeds. On the Internet, you can find videos of the streets of cities and villages, where the dead are lying in a heap, in some cases the dead are buried or burned. The houses of the victims are looted, their property is taken away. ...Given the line the new authorities have chosen towards the Alawites, sooner or later the coast would have flared up. Now, due to spontaneity, it didn't flare up as much - the new authorities reacted strongly, shooting everyone in a row. But imagine if the underground had risen not now, but in four or five months, and had taken control of the coast and the territories around our bases, and the new authorities from Damascus had demanded intervention? I hope that our command does have some kind of backup plan for this matter. What can we state now? First of all, for us and our interests. I will say right away that even before that, the attitude towards us from the new authorities fluctuated from hostile to very hostile. This is logical, considering that our Aerospace Forces participated in the defeat of jihadist groups and bombed their locations in Idlib until the very last moment. And Julani's demands at the negotiations to hand over Assad and his escaped comrades, as well as to compensate for the damage from the bombings, did not come as a surprise. However, they did not kick us out right away, apparently intending to negotiate with the Europeans and the US about lifting the sanctions. Now, in social networks of supporters of the new Syrian authorities, there is no longer any doubt about the idea that it was under the patronage of the Russians that the Alawite underground was able to form and act. And this will undoubtedly affect the negotiations regarding the further presence of our military bases on the coast in the near future. Otherwise, we can confidently state that the idea of ​​at least a unitary Syria and its reintegration in the near future is finally buried. Neither the Kurds, nor the Druze, nor, especially, the Alawites will want to voluntarily directly submit to Damascus and the new Syrian authorities after this. |
| Posted by:Grom the Affective |