Syria's sectarian killing spree exposes challenges ahead for Al Shara

Recent wave of deadly violence has revealed underlying fault lines in newly liberated country

Syrian troops inspect a vehicle at a checkpoint in the country's coastal region, after a wave of violence involving security forces and gunmen loyal to former president Bashar Al Assad. AP

For more than a week, Hassan and his family were sheltering in a forest, too scared to return to their village in the countryside of Qardaha on Syria's coast. Their home lies in the heartland of the Alawite religious minority, the scene of sectarian-fuelled rampages earlier this month.

Hassan has since returned to his house but remains holed up inside. While the situation may have calmed, the fear has not left them. “Nowhere is safe,” he told The National by phone. He is afraid of arbitrary arrest at checkpoints. Sectarian insults and intimidation, he said, have become common.

The violence began on March 6, when former Assad regime loyalists launched a multipronged assault on several security points along the coast – the most elaborate attack since a rebel coalition led by the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) toppled dictator Bashar Al Assad in December.

As the new authorities sent reinforcements to the coast and called for a general mobilisation to quell the insurgency, unregulated groups that had recently joined the Ministry of Defence, along with individuals, exploited the chaos to seek revenge on the Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islamists to which Mr Al Assad belongs, for the former regime's crimes.

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While Mr Al Assad had appointed most of his top officers from his community, Alawite regions have remained notoriously impoverished over the years, with much of the minority group saying it has also suffered under his iron-fisted rule. When Sunni rebel groups toppled the Assad regime, many Alawites said they were scared of being seen as responsible for crimes committed by Mr Al Assad, based only on their sectarian affiliation.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), the violence has killed more than 1,084 people. Government forces and affiliated elements killed 639 civilians and disarmed militants, while Assad remnants killed 445 people, including 213 soldiers and 231 civilians.

The violence has revealed the arduous challenges ahead for the new authorities, which have vowed to protect minorities – a guarantee demanded by the international community in exchange for lifting sweeping sanctions – and restore stability after 14 years of civil war.

Burnt-out cars line the streets of Jableh in Syria's coastal province of Latakia after a bout of sectarian violence gripped the city. AFP

“I think what happened in many ways exposed the reality that the new government doesn't necessarily have command and control over all the different armed factions, let alone the fact that civilians were involved in this as well,” Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute, told The National.

The integration of the complex web of factions that took part in the fall of the regime into a united and disciplined army has faced many hurdles, despite the new Syrian authorities announcing an agreement with all those armed groups for their dissolution in December.

According to the SNHR, most of the killing has been committed by factions formerly affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), Sultan Suleiman Shah brigade and the Hamzat division, respectively led by Abu Amsha and Saif Abu Bakr, both under US sanctions for human rights abuse.

Fighters from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army load a machinegun with ammunition near Tishrin Dam in Syria's northern Aleppo province. AFP

Mr Zelin said these factions are not part of HTS's core forces. “Of course, some HTS members were involved, including foreign fighters, but most of HTS has very good discipline. It was especially the involvement of SNA factions and random civilians – who lack this discipline – that led to the violence,” he said.

He explained that the clashes occurred despite the new transitional government’s efforts to contain sectarian revenge, which it knows will jeopardise any attempts at state building. For Mr Zelin, the unification of the new army and its control over the collection of factions are further complicated by the foreign agendas of some of these groups.

“The SNA is supported by Turkish funding and backing, which prevents Damascus from having real command and control,” he said. The SNA was created to fight the semi-autonomous Kurdish-led administration in north-eastern Syria, which Ankara views as a threat.

“Until that’s resolved, the Syrian state is not going to fully control the SNA.”

A 'narrow window of opportunity'

Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara speaking at the National Dialogue Conference in Damascus, at which he promised an inclusive state-building process. Photo: Syrian Arab News Agency

The recent sectarian turmoil has also revealed fault lines within Syrian society, which have so far been overlooked, human rights lawyer Nadim Houry said. “Everyone talked about the need for justice and transitional justice mechanisms in Syria, but nothing concrete has been put in place.”

HTS’s initial strategy was to grant amnesty to all conscripts while vowing to hold those who had committed serious crimes accountable. But with the mammoth challenges facing the new government, transitional justice has not remained a top priority. “The strategy was: you lay down your arms, you register yourselves, and then we’ll stop at this – and afterwards, we’ll deal with the worst criminals. Except that this next step never actually materialised,” Mr Houry said.

“This should be a wake-up call. Damascus needs to shift its approach to start a more inclusive transition process – but also to realise that if justice concerns are not addressed, it will fuel more violence. There’s a narrow window of opportunity but the alternative is so far worse.”

The clashes might also affect how the international community perceives the new Syrian government’s ability to protect minorities, potentially further delaying the much-needed lifting of sanctions.

HTS leader and interim President Ahmad Al Shara, a former rebel commander once affiliated with Al Qaeda, who has since distanced himself from the group, has shown strong pragmatism in his style of ruling, pledging to build an inclusive state as the country desperately seeks international recognition. But some have wondered if this new nationalistic stance was merely an opportunistic facade rather than representing any real transformation.

The US, which has maintained far-reaching sanctions on Syria, condemned “the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days”. Mr Zelin said that, ultimately, the clashes are unlikely to be a game-changer for the US regarding the lifting of sanctions, as "the Trump administration has been more or less uninterested in doing this before or after the massacres”, he said.

Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited Damascus and met Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shibani. AP

The EU has been more active in re-engaging with Damascus. Before the clashes, the EU had already lifted some sweeping sanctions on Syrian institutions on industries such as the energy, transport and financial sectors. Despite the recent surge in violence, Germany reopened its embassy to Syria on Thursday, which it closed 13 years ago when Mr Al Assad violently suppressed a popular uprising.

A European diplomat told The National that while the turmoil “has forced the international community to reconsider the rush to re-engage with the authorities in place”, it was far from stopping the rapprochement altogether. “The initial rush has calmed down. Now it’s more of a wait-and-see approach,” the source said.

The diplomat welcomed the creation of a committee to investigate the violence, announced by Mr Al Shara, who promised “punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us”.

“Now, the new authorities are playing the game differently from the old regime: forming commissions, accepting criticism, opening the door to all kinds of investigations and monitoring … these actions taken by the government have made it easier to swallow the pill,” the European source said.

The diplomat also hailed two major breakthroughs for Damascus in its effort to unify the country, which immediately followed the clashes. One was an agreement with the Kurdish-led militia in north-eastern Syria to join the new government, and the other a deal with the Druze community to merge the province of Suweida into the new state institutions.

“They are handling it pretty well – showing a co-operative face, managing the international community – now we’ll have to see what happens next,” the source said.