Gunmen killed in renewed Syrian security campaign in Alawite coastal heartland

'Terrorist cells neutralised' while pro-government militias evict Alawites from Damascus

Alawite Syrian men load up their belongings as they leave their home in Somariyyeh, a Damascus suburb. AP

Syrian security forces have killed several gunmen in a campaign against “terrorist cells” in the coastal Alawite heartland, the Interior Ministry said, as pro-government militias evicted hundreds of Alawites from their homes in Damascus.

The latest moves in the governorate of Tartus and in the Somariyyeh suburb of the capital are raising pressure on the country’s minorities.

The Interior Ministry said army and special police units killed several “terrorists” on Saturday in a security campaign against their networks in rural Tartus. A statement said one of these cells was responsible for the killing of two security personnel in Tartus last month.

“Several members of the cell were neutralised, the rest were arrested,” said Col Abdel Aal Mohammed Abdel Aal, head of Internal Security in Tartus.

At least 1,300 Alawites, mostly civilians, were killed in a government campaign to take control of the coast in March. But abductions and random killings of members of the sect, especially in drive-by shootings in coastal and central Syria, have continued.

In June, hundreds of people were killed in a campaign to subdue the mostly Druze southern province of Sweida, near Syria's border with Jordan. Israeli intervention prevented a complete takeover of the area by the army and tribal militias.

Alawite personnel underpinned the former Assad regime, which ruled majority-Sunni Syria from 1970 to 2024. The Alawites formed the core of the national security apparatus and held key managerial positions in government, as well as overseeing smuggling, which became the mainstay of the economy.

Thousands of Alawite households moved from the countryside to Damascus and other major cities. Many lived in makeshift residences where construction went ahead without building permits or official property papers, a situation that then became pervasive throughout Syria, regardless of religion or ethnicity.

The removal of the dictator Bashar Al Assad in December by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), a group formerly affiliated with Al Qaeda, placed Sunnis in the political ascendancy. Alawite officers and senior officials fled urban centres to their home regions on the coast or in the countryside of Homs and Hama. Other Alawites, who held junior positions in the government or had their own small businesses, remained in their homes.

A house door is marked with XO, indicating an order for the family living there to leave, in Somariyyah, a suburb west of Damascus. AP

However, hundreds of Alawite families in the neighbourhood of Somariyyeh, just west of Damascus, were last month ordered by local authorities to leave their homes. By the end of the weekend most had done so, sources in the community said.

The order was enforced by militias from the adjacent Sunni district of Modamyeh, whose residents say Somariyyeh belonged to them and was taken away when the elite Fourth Division set up a base in the area. The unit was controlled by Maher Al Assad, the brother of Bashar Al Assad. Both men are now in exile in Russia.

Mohammad Al Zuaiter, a prominent Alawite civil figure, said Somariyyeh families left for the coast or for areas in Syria's interior, such as Mesyaf. Videos on social media showed the almost deserted neighbourhood, its tin-roofed houses vacant and ramshackle shops shuttered. Much of the economy of Somariyyeh revolved around selling smuggled products from Lebanon – the source of many goods in Syria during the Al Assad era.

“The pro-government militias flexed their muscles against what is essentially misery belt,” said Mr Al Zuaiter, who was a political prisoner in the notorious Palmyra prison during the rule of Hafez Al Assad, Bashar's father.

Thousands of Alawites are crammed into illegally built areas in what became the neighbourhoods of Ush Al Warar, Mazzeh 68, Masaken Barzeh and Jabal al Ward, all of which are within the Damascus metropolis.