As HTS-led security forces pursue former regime personnel in coastal areas, sectarian rhetoric circulates online, prompting locals to call for a distinction between “the Alawite sect and the Assadist sect.”
SDF-held Raqqa city is tense, its nights under curfew punctuated by gunfire and arrests. Residents feel cut off from the rest of Syria, fearing the possibility of partition and a return of IS.
Kurdish and Arab residents of northeastern Syria described joy at the fall of the Assad regime, while views of the new authorities in Damascus and the future of SDF-held areas range from optimism to trepidation.
Several commanders defected from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Deir e-Zor in recent days, amid demonstrations and simmering anger in the SDF-held countryside.
