In Syria, Sunni Muslim militias are killing Alawites and Christians

Violent attacks in Syria against a pair of religious minorities highlight the persistence of sectarian persecution in the Middle East during the past two decades.

In the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia earlier this month, marauding Sunni Muslim militias killed more than a thousand Alawites, a population that belongs to a religious sect related to Islam. A small number of Christians, whose presence in the country dates back two millennia, were also attacked and at least four were killed.

Guilt by association is attributed to Alawites and Christian due to their relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted from power in December after a long civil war. He had declared himself a protector of both sects.

Such protection carries a cost, possibly tarring minority citizens as favored by the ruler. In times of peace, minorities are expected to at least show obedience, and even express admiration, in return for protection from potential harm from majorities. When the dictator is overthrown, wrath falls on the minority populations considered lackeys of an evil regime.

Attacks from within the mainstream Sunni Islam sect have also been fueled by the emergence among radical Sunni groups of the view that minorities such as Alawites and Christians are not only heretics but pariahs who must be cast away. Similar attacks on minority religious and ethnic minority groups have taken place in Egypt and Iraq.

Such extreme hostility was part and parcel of the terrorist ideology promoted by al-Qaeda and regional offshoots, including the Islamic State. All operated in Syria during its civil war and all insisted on persecuting Christians and Alawites.

Last year’s lightning overthrow of al-Assad by Sunni militias was orchestrated by the man who has become the country’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa. He once headed Al-Nusra Front, a fundamentalist Salafi-jihadist organization that fought Assad. Nusra was notorious for several atrocities aimed at Alawite and Christian civilians.

In 2013, Nusra gunmen reportedly executed at least 16 Alawites in a village east of the city of Homs, including seven women and four children. Al-Shararaa, then operating under his code name Abu Muhammed al-Jolani, called for all-out attacks on Alawite communities. “There is no choice but to escalate the battle and to target Alawite towns and villages in Latakia,” he said.

Nusra was also involved in the killings of Christians in the village of Jisr al-Shughour and executed a Christian couple for being agents of al-Assad. Masses of Christian communities fled into Turkey.

Eventually, al-Sharaa and his Nusra Front broke their alliance with the Islamic State in Iraq and later with al-Qaeda. He formed, with other militias, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,  the “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.”

In effect, al-Sharaa transformed his pan-Islamic political identity into a nationalist one, along the line of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is a main sponsor of HTS.

As Syria’s new leader, al-Sharaa has taken pains to ease Alawite and Christian concerns about the new regime. He condemned the rampage against Alawites. “Syria is a state of law,” he told an interviewer in Damascus.

“We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us,” al-Sharaa said.

 Late last December, al-Sharaa met with Christian religious leaders to assure them that Syria would be a pluralistic and ethnically tolerant.

Syrian Catholic Archbishop Jacques Mourad attended the meeting, and said that al-Sharaa avoided using the word “minority,” when talking about the Christian community.

“He said that Christians and other groups are part of the Syrian people,” the archbishop said. “He is aware that we Christians are foundational to this country.” 

United Nations General Secretary António Guterres in a message delivered this month, expressed hope that al-Sharaa would follow international human rights norms. “Now is the time for action,” he said. “Bold and decisive measures are urgently needed to ensure that every Syrian — regardless of ethnicity, religion, political affiliation or gender — can live in safety, dignity and without fear.”

Whether such appeals will be enough to placate vengeful Syrians, and especially Muslim extremists who detested the al-Assad regime, is yet unclear.

The Alawites are especially vulnerable to accusations of cooperating with the dictator. Under al-Assad, 80% of the 1.7 million Alawite population worked in government jobs, including the intelligence services, the army and public administration. Widows of slain Alawite soldiers received jobs and welfare benefits.

Yet, even Alawite supporters had recently and publicly criticized al-Assad, blaming him for the failures of economic development and for corrupt government. They even criticized his wife al-Asma, who once appeared on the cover of Vogue Magazine, for having excessive economic and cultural influence on al-Assad.

Nonetheless, fear of the future quickly took hold once al-Assad fell. Thousands of Alawites have crossed into Lebanon for refuge or gone farther to Iran, which was Assad’s key international ally.

Besides fearing violence, they were concerned that Syria would follow in the footsteps of Iraq, which, under the influence of an Iraqi agent for Iran named Ahmed al-Chalabi, kicked out members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party from government jobs. Millions of Sunnis – a minority in Iraq – were ousted from jobs, including teachers, truck drivers and bureaucrats.

Indications of wide future persecution have already emerged. Vandals destroyed an Alawite shrine in Aleppo, the country’s second largest city. Women are being warned by freelance vigilantes to put on veils in the style of conservative Muslims.

Syrian Christians, though not burdened with having massively integrated into al-Assad’s security apparatus and ruling regime, have nonetheless fled the country by the tens of thousands in the past decade.

In 2011, Christians made up 10 percent of the Syrian population. A decade later,  the figure had shrunk to about 2.5 percent – in numbers, they dropped from about 1.5 million in 2012 to about 300,000 in 2022. Christians had roundly supported the Arab Spring civic revolt in Syria, but soured on the armed resistance to al-Assad when they became targets of atrocities including public executions. Most Christians left for Lebanon, Europe and North America.

In the recent Latakia incident, the Christian dead – 12 in total, according to reports – may not have been targeted, instead may just have been caught up in the general violence. “Christians were killed not because they were Christians, but because they lived in Alawite neighborhoods,” said Archbishop Mourad. “They were collateral victims.”

Fears are growing that Christians will soon be routinely targeted. In a letter he sent to al-Sharaa this month, Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X reported with alarm that Christian icons in churches in Syria had been defaced and Christian homes burned. In December, Christmas trees were also set afire, he noted.

Some Christians are looking to Western powers to campaign for their protection.

Human rights activist John Eibner, president of Christian Solidarity International, asked US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to take direct action by imposing sanctions on al-Sharaa and his government, by cooperating with an international investigation into the Latakia killings and by upholding international law “to prevent genocide in Syria.”

“Targeted killings of Alawites did not happen in a vacuum,” Eibner wrote in a letter to both leaders. “Some Christian civilians were also killed in the massacre, and Christians across the country are living in fear of further violence.” He blamed the violence of Sunni jihadists.

The US administration did not formally respond. US Vice President JD Vance told reporters that he was “talking to our allies. We’re already working behind the scenes to push for protections for minorities. But it’s truly scandalous.”

He ruled out using military force to protect Syrian minorities.

During Trump’s first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, his vice president, Mike Pence, pressured the US Agency for International Development to make funds available for persecuted Christians in Iraq and Syria.

Daniel Williams is the author of Forsaken: The Persecution of Christians in Today’s Middle East.