Pro-government militias who took part in a coastal security campaign have started withdrawing into the centre of Syria, residents said on Sunday, after hundreds of the minority Alawite community were killed in the worst violence since the removal of the Assad regime from power three months ago.
More than 1,300 people, including 830 civilians, most of whom were Alawites, have been killed since Thursday in a wave of sectarian killings in areas along the Mediterranean, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in the UK.
Ahmad Al Zuaiter, an Alawite who spent years as a political prisoner for his opposition to the Assad regime, told The National from the city of Baniyas that the militias “started pulling out yesterday but rampaged through villages on the way”.
“The kept committing violations even on the move,” Mr Al Zuaiter said. He added that dozens of civilians were killed on Sunday in Barmaia, Hittaneh, and other villages along the D35 road from Baniyas, a mixed city, to Sunni areas in the highlands.
The Syrian presidency announced on Sunday the formation of a committee to investigate the “events” of the coast that took place on Thursday, according to the Syrian National News Agency Sana.
Only security troops led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham have remained in Baniyas, he said. The group, which was formerly linked to Al Qaeda, led the 11-day offensive against the regime in December. HTS leader Ahmad Al Shara was appointed by his close circle as the country's president.
Since HTS took over, there have been campaigns on the coastal areas in which killings of members of the minority group have been reported, as well as some casualties from the security troops. The latest attack on the coast started last week after two members of HTS were killed.
Mr Al Zuaiter said that the current focus of the rampage is the Qadmos area east of Baniyas, which he said is “burning” from Alawite areas being attacked by drones. “The whole of the Qadmos has fallen under the mercy of drones,” he said.
HTS-led troops hit areas in the Baniyas countryside using drones and artillery, according to the observatory, causing panic among civilians. Drones have been used to hit mountain and forest areas. Homes have also been raided and burnt, it added.
The UN human rights head called on Syria's leadership on Sunday to intervene to prevent reported mass murder in coastal areas and bring the perpetrators to account.
“The caretaker authorities' announcements of their intention to respect the law must be followed by swift actions to protect Syrians,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said.
“We are receiving extremely disturbing reports of entire families … being killed. There are reports of summary executions on a sectarian basis by unidentified perpetrators, by members of the caretaker authorities’ security forces, as well as by elements associated with the former government.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned “radical Islamist terrorists” who have killed people in western Syria.
“The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families,” Mr Rubio said. “Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said reports of widespread civilian deaths in coastal regions of Syria were horrific and urged that all Syrians be protected from violence.
“The authorities in Damascus must ensure the protection of all Syrians and set out a clear path to transitional justice,” Mr Lammy said.
More than 270 fighters have been killed on both sides, in battles in coastal cities and in the surrounding countryside, according to the observatory. Pro-government militias also withdrew from the coastal city of Latakia on Sunday, according to an Alawite civil society figure.
He comes from a family who opposed former president Bashar Al Assad’s rule, and spent a decade as a political prisoner in the 1980s and 1990s. His two brothers, aged 67 and 72, and his 32-year-old nephew were killed by members of the militias on Thursday in the Qusoor neighbourhood of Baniyas, he told The National. “They took them to a rooftop and shot them,” he said by phone.
Killings of Alawite civilians have also been reported in the countryside of Hama. An Alawite lawyer in contact with international human rights organisations said nine lawyers she knows have also been killed. “Our only recourse is to keep documenting the massacres so the world knows what they [the authorities] are doing,” she said.
Hanadi Zaalout, a Syrian Alawite writer and an opponent of the former regime, said that her three brothers were killed in the Alawite village of Snobar Jableh. “All the men in the village were shot dead and their bodies left on the streets. Only women and children are left.”
Mr Al Shara, Syria's interim President, called for calm on Sunday, without mentioning who was behind the bloodshed. “The challenges being faced in the country were expected. We must preserve national unity and civil peace,” he told worshippers during dawn prayers at the Akram Mosque in the Mazzeh district of Damascus, where he grew up.
“We can live together, God willing, in this country, as much as possible.”
On Saturday, Mr Al Shara called for armed men linked to the ousted regime to surrender immediately. “You attacked all Syrians and made an unforgivable mistake. The riposte has come, and you have not been able to withstand it,” he said.
Syria's state news agency, quoting a Defence Ministry official, said Syrian government forces have reclaimed most of the area from Assad loyalists. It said authorities have closed all roads leading to the coastal region “to prevent violations and gradually restore stability”.
An emergency committee has been formed to “monitor violations” of the command's instructions and refer perpetrators to the military court, it added.
The violence has led to international concern about sectarian violence in the country. In a statement, the EU said it “strongly condemns the recent attacks, reportedly by pro-Assad elements, on interim government forces in the coastal areas of Syria and all violence against civilians”.
France’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday urged Syria's new authorities “to ensure that independent investigations can shed light on these crimes and that the perpetrators are held accountable”, while condemning violence against “civilians because of their faith”.
A member of the Alawite community in Damascus said “nowhere is safe” for them now. He said it is “outrageous” to call all Alawites supporters of the former regime. “We don’t even know who or what the authorities are looking for,” he said.
Photos taken by Alawite activists showed a mass burial of 12 victims, each wrapped in a white sheet, in the village of Tuwaym in the Hama countryside. Videos have emerged showing the mass killing of men in civilian clothes in other areas, as well as scenes of humiliation, which The National could not verify.
Another resident of Damascus said he does not know if his relatives on the coast are still alive, because the phone lines have been cut off. “Maybe they're alive, maybe they're not,” he said.
The Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, comprised 10 per cent of Sunni-majority Syria, according to figures from 2010. They dominated the country politically from 1963 until the Assad regime was thrown out in December.
Thousands of armed men from Sunni villages and towns, particularly in the provinces of Idlib, Hama and Homs, headed to the coast over the last several days in car and lorry columns to support the HTS-led troops.
