Sectarian fears rise as regime figures hunted in Syria’s Alawite heartland

PARIS — The Syrian transitional government’s Ministry of Interior continued a security operation pursuing “remnants of the former regime” in the coastal province of Tartous on Thursday, one day after 14 security forces were killed and 10 injured in clashes with local gunmen during an attempted arrest. 

Forces from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)-led Military Operations Department (MOD) deployed in Tartous city and surrounding villages and towns on Thursday. In Khirbet al-Maaza, the site of Wednesday’s clashes, security personnel arrested Major General Muhammad Kanjo Hassan, the former director of the Military Justice Department who oversaw the military field court at the infamous Saydnaya prison just outside Damascus. 

Coinciding with Wednesday’s clashes in Khirbet al-Maaza, protests broke out in Alawite communities in Homs, Latakia and Tartous after a video spread online showing the burning of the shrine of Sheikh Abu Abdullah Hussein al-Khasibi—a revered religious figure for Alawites—in Aleppo city. 

Custodians of the shrine later issued a statement clarifying that the video was old, and the incident took place when opposition forces entered Aleppo city on November 29, Verify-Sy, a Syrian website focused on fact-checking and countering misinformation, reported.

Recent events in Syria’s coastal region were “systematic and intentional—the coast would not ignite in this way, at this speed,” Lara Ezzouqi, a journalist from Tartous who divides her time between there and Damascus, told Syria Direct. She sees “a hidden hand behind the protests, aimed at fueling discord.” 

Following its own investigation, Verify-Sy issued a statement on Wednesday noting the video of the attack on al-Khasibi’s shrine was real, but circulated in a misleading way. One of the pages that first posted the video was created by an account under the name “Raad al-Assad,” with an IP address in Damascus that is “linked to a large network that runs other pages publishing misleading videos, with clear goals,” it said. 

Khirbet al-Maaza, where Wednesday’s attempted arrest and clashes occurred, is known for “the presence of notorious regime figures, including Ali Mehanna, who turned his village into a state in itself, spreading weapons in it, alongside the presence of regime shabiha and drug dealers,” Ezzouqi said. 

Such villages should be approached “with caution and wisdom,” she noted, as “civilians pay the price, and there are women, children, elderly people and civilian young men who have nothing to do with everything that is happening.”

Since Thursday morning, Tartous residents have been warning each other to “stay indoors,” with “heavy gunfire being heard, reports of some roads being blocked and military reinforcements arriving to support HTS,” Raafat Hussein (a pseudonym) told Syria Direct from his residence there. 

Where Hussein lives, on the Tartous city seafront, the streets were deserted. In front of the governorate building, dozens demonstrated on Thursday expressing support for HTS-led military forces and chanting slogans such as “the people want your execution, Bashar.” 

The views expressed by demonstrators on Thursday matched sentiments the day Assad fell, Hussein, an Alawite resident of the city, said. “We received HTS forces with open arms, and we were of different sects—Sunnis, Alawites, Christians—in the hope of salvation from the era of Assad and his practices of detention, extortion and banditry,” he added. 

Accountability without sectarianism

After Assad fell on December 8 and MOD forces entered Syria’s coastal provinces, many videos spread online showing opposition fighters uttering sectarian phrases or treating prisoners in a humiliating way. 

These actions “resembled, somewhat, Assadist practices of dealing arrogantly with people on the coast,” Hussein said. He gave the example of “a fighter passing in front of a civilian in Tartous, saying ‘glory to the one who honored us and humiliated you.’”

“Syrians across the spectrum, including Alawites, have a kind of self-esteem and pride,” Hussein said. “The number of Alawites imprisoned by the former regime is high, compared to their percentage of the population. For myself, there is no intelligence branch that hasn’t summoned me, time and again,” he added. He called on the new administration to be aware, and not put everyone together in “the box of accusation.” 

“I have been opposed to the regime since I became aware, because I am from an environment of dissidents and intellectuals in Tartous,” Ezzouqi echoed. “Alawites are simple, good people who have sacrificed a lot, but the regime played a dirty game with them.” 

At the same time, the regime “used many from the coast, lured them and gave them power and weapons so they would blindly follow Bashar al-Assad,” she added. While many lived in “an environment of poverty and hunger, the regime’s cronies lived in their ivory towers, telling them: If you don’t stand with us, the Sunnis will come and kill you,” she said. 

“We are for accountability, and we cannot stay silent about anyone involved. But it isn’t possible to pursue the little fish and leave the big fish,” Ezzouqi added. Those carrying out security operations on the coast must also be “aware of the target area, because some villages in Tartous have people with authority and leadership as though they were still under Assad,” who “could not bear someone coming to hold them accountable and set limits,” she said. 

Without “appropriate security measures,” the Khirbet al-Maaza incident could be repeated, Ezzouqi warned. 

At the same time, she stressed the need to distinguish between “the Alawite sect and the Assadist sect.” The ousted Assad regime was “not only Alawites, but from all over Syria and all sects,” she said. “Alawites are living in great terror, fearing the influence of dangerous media mobilization against them.” 

For its part, the transitional government’s Ministry of Information issued a statement on Thursday warning against sharing any “sectarian news content aimed at spreading division and discrimination among the components of the Syrian people.” 

Specificity and diversity 

Tartous is “demographically distinct from other Syrian cities, including Latakia, as Alawites make up 65 percent of the population, while Sunnis and Christians are a minority, each accounting for only 10 percent,” Nabih Nabhan, an engineer and peace activist in the province told Syria Direct in a recent interview. 

The former regime “hindered economic activity and investment in Tartous in order to direct people to become a human reservoir for the security apparatus and army,” Nabhan added. 

In light of this, and other factors related to the area’s diversity, “we are going through a dangerous phase of transformation, which requires great awareness and education,” he added. “Any wrong move by the new forces will threaten the position of people in Tartous and Latakia towards the new state.”

When HTS forces first entered the coast, Ezzouqi “went down into the streets of Tartous,” she recalled. “I walked among them, and saw nothing to bother me or others.”

At first, Hussein felt relieved at being rid of Assad. But as time passed, he felt a kind of resentment at “interference in some of our privacy, such as asking a woman why she doesn’t wear a hijab,” as he personally witnessed. 

“Sometimes, you find two neighboring villages with two different cultures. You can notice this after the first visit, so we hope this is taken into account,” he added. Rather than a “kind of mockery of values,” he called on Syria’s new authorities to consider the freedoms and culture of the coast.

Two days ago, the newly appointed governor of Latakia, Hassan Soufan—a former leader of the Ahrar a-Sham faction—met with representatives of the Alawite sect on the coast. A representative of Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Muhammad al-Jolani) also “met with representatives from the sect in Tartous,” Hussein said.

Hussein attended the meeting “to tell him about the importance of meeting with civil society, and question why the focus is on meeting with religious Sunni, Christian and Alawite figures, knowing the society on the coast has nothing to do with them,” he said. 

While he holds both American citizenship and a golden visa for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Hussein stayed in Syria throughout the revolution and war, only leaving twice, in 2012 and 2018, for visits. 

“I did not leave Syria because I love my country, but I die a thousand times a day from what is going on,” he said. “So what do you expect if a family doesn’t have the money to eat and drink?”

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.