Syrian authorities called off a military campaign to spread government control over the strategic coastal region on Monday, after hundreds of civilians in the area were killed in the operation, undermining stabilisation efforts and the image of the new state in the West.
Most of those who were killed belong to the Alawite minority, the sect from which the ousted Assad family regime drew core support during its five-decade domination of the Sunni majority country. Ahmad Al Shara, rebel turned president in January, has formed a committee to investigate some of the violence.
He blamed “regime remnants” for the escalation. Mr Al Shara heads Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a Sunni group formerly linked with al Qaeda, which led the removal of the regime in December. The Assad family are also Alawites.
However, mechanisms to try war criminals in Syria are rudimentary. Officials have shown aversion to transitional justice and reconciliation mechanisms modelled after countries such as South Africa and Colombia, diplomats who have discussed the issue with the government said.
What prompted the escalation?
The coastal campaign started in late December, with HTS-led raids mainly targeting Alawite districts to seize weapon caches, disband militias, and arrest members of the former security apparatus and associated forces suspected of having participated in atrocities during the civil war. Parts of the coast, especially the highlands, constitute the Alawite heartland, and many in the community regarded the campaign as targeting the group's existence, after dominating power in Syria from 1963 until the regime's end last year.
The attacking forces often ran into ambushes set up by members of the Alawite fighting core, who tend to know the terrain better and have in some cases inflicted heavy casualties on the HTS-led forces.
However, HTS deployed thousands of fighters and auxiliaries brought in from Sunni villages and towns in the interior to the coast last week. The catalyst was the killing of two members of a new government security force in the Alawite neighbourhoods of Daatour, in the coastal city of Latakia. The district is regarded as a depot of the “shabiha”, auxiliaries who fought alongside Bashar Al Assad's regular forces during the civil war.
The deployment ushered in a new phase of the campaign, with the attacking forces bombing Daatour and other districts in the city of Baniyas into submission, with little regard for civilian casualties, before sending infantry brigades to take control. A similar tactic was used to overrun Alawite areas in the coastal countryside.
A large death toll
More than 1,300 people, including 973 civilians, most of whom were Alawites, have been killed since Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in Britain. The organisation said that “killings and field executions” were recorded in the coastal areas of Tartous, Baniyas and areas of Latakia, among other regions.
At least 500 HTS fighters and auxiliaries have been killed since the campaign into the coast started in late December, sources in the group told The National.
At least five Christian civilians were also killed over the last week in Baniyas, members of the clergy in Damascus said. In a rare move, bishops from different denominations issued a joint declaration on Sunday. They condemned “the massacring of innocent citizens” and demanded a halt “to these horrible acts”.
What did the authorities say?
Colonel Hussein Abdulghani, spokesman for the Joint Operations Room, a military organisation led by HTS, said on Monday that during the attacks by regime remnants “have been absorbed' and that the enemy “was robbed of the element of surprise”.
“We managed to push them away from vital centres and to secure most public roads, where they targeted the innocent,” he said, vowing to “continue working on plans” to counter regime remnants.
On Sunday, Mr Al Shara pledged that his government would hold accountable anyone involved in the killing of civilians, adding that a committee would be formed to preserve peace.
“We will hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who was involved in the bloodshed of civilians … or who overstepped the powers of the state” Mr Al Shara said.
Who has condemned the violence?
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.”
A high-level regional meeting on Sunday in Jordan condemned “groups that target Syria’s security”, amid the worst fighting the country has suffered since the fall of the Assad regime in December, and fears of an ISIS resurgence.
“The participants affirmed … their condemnation of all attempts and groups that target the security of sovereignty and peace in brotherly Syria,” said a statement by the five countries after the one-day meeting, which comprised their foreign and defence ministers, and their intelligence chiefs.
Preserving Syria’s security and sovereignty is “fundamental” for the whole region, the statement said.
What happens next?
After demanding that former core regime personnel on the coast submit to his government, Mr Al Shara has backed down, while keeping the option of renewing the campaign open.
However, targeting more Alawite non-combatants could reverse gains he has made in curbing western sanctions on the country, as well as undermining his drive for reconstruction flows.
If the coastal front reignites, his forces could be mired in a protracted war in which they do not know the terrain as well as the opposition.
The killings have already raised the level of distrust between HTS and the country's other minorities. In particular, Kurdish militia who control parts of eastern Syria, and the Druze community are keen to keep HTS forces away from their ancestral territory in the south of Syria.
