Jens Kreinath
Alarming reports about systematic and intentional mass killings in western Syria have been filling the headlines of various international media outlets in recent days. There is talk about increasing evidence of sectarian violence and clashes between a newly formed group of pro-Assad insurgents and supporters of Syria’s interim government. Allegedly the group consisted mainly of members of the Alawite minority and was led by known figures such as Miqdad Fattihah and the former commander of the Assad regime’s 42nd Brigade Ghiath Dalla.
The UN’s human rights chief has already called for swift action and Syria’s new leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (aka Abu Mohammad al-Jolani), has promised to form a committee to investigate the widely reported mass revenge killings. What seems to be lacking in most of these reports is a clear statement that points to the systematic and intentional character of the killing of Alawites in the Syrian governorates of Latakia, Tartus, and Hama.
Recently published reports of video evidence unequivocally demonstrate that the violence in Syria is also celebrated by a few naturalized European citizens of Syrian origin abroad. However, this is not the only disturbing evidence: those who promote hate speech and incite to violence seem to be driven by attention-seeking entrepreneurism. They amplify their rhetoric to garner attention, boost viewership, and maximize fame and financial profits. The slick TikTok-style videos that they share via their social media accounts cheer on the atrocities to catch tunes, actively promoting further violence.
In a recent article in the Spectator, Paul Woods aptly describes the grueling social media representations by stating, “They film them, celebrate them, post them on X.” There are videos from Syria “showing Islamist fighters making terrified Alawite men get on their hands and knees and howl like dogs.” Victims are made to “crawl along a street spattered with blood and gore as a bearded gunman clubs them with a wooden pole. The camera comes to rest on half a dozen bodies. Then we hear rifle shots.”
Among the abhorrent social media postings is extensive video footage, mostly filmed by the perpetrators themselves, that provides clear evidence of the involvement of armed pro-government groups in these atrocities. Numerous eyewitness accounts describe how uniformed men go from house to house in Alawite and Christian neighborhoods inquiring about people’s religious identities and their place of residence before making collective arrests. There are also eyewitness reports that speak of publicly announced mass executions before they happen. Entire families, including children and infants, have fallen victim to those. While it is mainly Alawites who were primarily targeted, some Oriental Christians were not spared either, or Sunni Muslims who were suspected to shelter the targeted Alawite population.
The perpetrators’ cynical self-portrayal in these videos – their sheer depravity – knows no bounds. Their dehumanizing hatred is clear and visible. Corpses are thrown into ditches, burned, or left by the roadside to rot. Homes are systematically destroyed and then set on fire. All this is to ensure that survivors are deprived of any means for survival. Even those who manage to flee are hunted to remote mountain areas where they are forced to subsist on grass and leaves, according to eyewitness reports published on social media.
© Documented evidence of the killing of Muhammad Hassan and his family in their home in the Al-Qusour neighborhood of Baniyas (reproduced with the permission of Moutaz M. Hassan, the victim’s uncle)
Syria’s interim government and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) must be called out for the atrocities that happen under their watch. They must face responsibility for allegations of war crimes and systemic and intentional ethnic cleansing of Alawites, as seen in the case of the Hassan family. The entire family was executed inside their home at 1:30 PM on Friday, March 7th, 2025, in the neighborhood of Al-Qusour in Baniyas: Muhammad Hassan, a mathematics teacher; his wife, Lina Jannoud, a science teacher; their three-year-old daughter, Manissa (as later verified by the uncle); and his mother, Nada Abdullah. The authenticity of the anonymous picture with the corpses was questioned and initially misattributed to crimes committed in other regions, such as Ukraine and Iraq. However, the Syrian platform “Verify-Sy” has confirmed the veracity of the image. The ongoing massacres and associated human rights violations, which show clear signs of ethnic cleansing, cast a dark shadow over Syria’s future.
So far, there has not been a single reference to promised or assured legal proceedings that address the war crimes of the Assad regime and the atrocities committed by al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra, or other groups now affiliated with the ruling HTS. The failure to address past atrocities and the inability to prevent further atrocities presents an irrevocably missed opportunity for the transitional government and its supporters to demonstrate a genuine commitment to national unity.
For too long, international media has been silent on this issue, in a seemingly tacit agreement with the events taking place in Syria. Many media portrayals have helped to spread misleading narratives and incendiary rhetoric about the Alawites who are mainly referred to as Assad-loyal supporters and hence perpetrators. Indeed, they are almost never seen as victims. What is not reported on is that many Alawites actively and openly participated in the demonstrations and resistance against the Assad regime. Many of them were imprisoned for decades under the rule of Hafiz Assad (1970-2000) and his son, Bashar (2000-2024), or threatened to be killed by the regime.
Rather than finding peace and safety under the new government, Alawites now continue to document the atrocities that are happening in their villages and towns. For many of those who participated in the uprising against Assad’s regime, it feels like a posttraumatic recap of the events in the early months of the uprising in 2011. The dominant and oversimplified perception of the Assad regime as an “Alawite regime” has served as a pretext for paramilitary and security forces loyal to the current government to carry out ethnic cleansing and mass killings. According to Syrian scholar, Professor Basileus Zeno (Trent University, Canada), “these acts of violence are not simply retaliation for the killing of more than 13 members of the new government’s General Security forces near Jableh (Latakia Governorate) on March 6 but also an attempt to blame the entire Alawite community for Assad’s crimes, inciting thereby further ethnic conflicts.”
The evidence that has so far been meticulously collected and critically evaluated by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) and the Syrian Network of Human Rights (SNHR) along with their teams of professionals and volunteers is substantial and undeniable. For legal scholars working on this case, the evidence amounts to a deliberate and intentional form of ethnic cleansing, though concrete evidence collected by the victims is systematically being destroyed by the perpetrators. However, some human rights organizations, like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) are actively working with impacted individuals to collect evidence and verify testimonies.
The systemic, orchestrated, and premeditated nature of the killings of Alawites is unquestionable considering the information that the documentation centers as mentioned above provide. Professor Zeno, who is familiar with the raw data, like the statistical figures of the death toll, and directly involved with survivor testimonies, warns that this “could become the largest number of sectarian massacres in such a short period of time that is comparable to that of the genocide in Rwanda (1994) and the Srebrenica massacre (1995) if the killing spree continues.” If the European Union and its governments choose to remain silent on this subject, they will eventually become complicit in the very crimes against humanity for which the interim government of Syria will be held accountable in court.
© Posted on Facebook by the Civil Peace Group -Seen مجموعة السلم الأهلي – سين, a Community Center · Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), on March 12, 2025, at 8:32 AM
Jens Kreinath (*1967; Dr. phil. 2006) is Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Wichita State University. His research interests include the cultural dimensions of interreligious relations in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly in the region of Antakya and the Syrian Turkish border area.
