Syria

[blindpig]

In Syria, an unhinged massacre of Alawite civilians

No Syrian 'unity and inclusion' can occur under former Al-Qaeda leader Julani 's government, especially after last week's brutal sectarian massacre of Syria's Alawite minority. But these killings have triggered global reactions, most bizarre of all, potential US–Russian unity on Damascus's rulers.


Gulriz Ergoz

MAR 11, 2025


Photo Credit: The Cradle
The initial optimism that followed the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government has swiftly turned into a nightmare.

The so-called ‘inclusive leadership’ of Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani), elected as ‘president’ by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied militant factions, was dramatically debunked last week after the rampant massacre of Syrian Alawites by his cadres.

Noticeably, the transitional administration in Damascus is not directing its efforts against Israeli occupation forces just 20 kilometers from the capital, nor against the Druze in the south, nor even against the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the country's northeast.

Instead, its most keen target is Syria's Alawite minority community, which faces abductions – sometimes in batches of five or 10 per day – executions, home invasions, and even forced humiliation, such as being ordered to bark like dogs.

‘Remnants of the regime’: Code for sectarian massacres

While the Sharaa administration claims its killing operations target “remnants of the old regime,” the military crackdown on Alawites that started in early March quickly descended into open massacres of civilians. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), at least 973 Alawite civilians were slaughtered on 10 March alone.

The HTS-linked government justifies its actions as necessary measures against “armed violence by regime remnants.” Yet, the definition and scope of these so-called ‘remnants’ remain ambiguous and, on closer scrutiny, fall apart entirely.

On 4 March, it was announced that “two members of the Syrian Defense Ministry were killed in an armed ambush” in the Alawite neighborhood of Datur in the coastal province of Latakia. The following day, security forces stormed the area in military vehicles and opened fire at random, accompanied by shouts of “Alawite pigs, we will crush your heads.” Four civilians, two construction workers, and two school guards were killed in the melee. Footage of the attack was broadcast worldwide.

The violence rapidly spread across Syria's coastal region on 6 March. In Daliyah, an Alawite village near Jableh in Tartous province, HTS security forces attempted to detain a 20-year-old man for questioning – despite the fact that he had never served in the Syrian army. Local leaders, wary of previous ‘questionings’ that had ended in executions, offered to mediate his surrender. Their offer was rejected.

The young man was forcibly taken, but the security forces were ambushed on their way out, leaving 13 of them dead. In retaliation, Damascus launched an indiscriminate aerial and artillery bombardment of Alawite villages.

Escalation and regional fallout

Mass protests then erupted in Tartous province – home to Russia’s naval base. Demonstrators stormed the governor’s office, and a video surfaced showing a Russian warplane maneuvering to force Syrian security helicopters to land.

The transitional government responded with reinforcements, while the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) deployed from the north. As HTS security forces opened fire on demonstrators, alarming reports of massacres of Alawites began to surface.

Amidst the turmoil, an Alawite militant group called the ‘Coastal Shield Brigade’ declared an armed uprising, announcing the formation of the ‘Military Council for the Liberation of Syria.’ Damascus imposed a curfew in Tartous and Latakia, launching a sweeping military campaign. Reports indicate significant losses among HTS security forces as insurgent groups retreated into the mountainous terrain.

Meanwhile, factions aligned with the Sharaa administration took to social media, openly calling for “jihad against the Alawites.” Mosques in HTS-stronghold Idlib and Hama amplified this message to their congregations, inciting sectarian strife.

The fate of Alawite civilians

Some Alawite civilians reportedly fled to mountainous areas, while others sought refuge with trusted Sunni acquaintances. Nearly 2,000 Alawites have taken refuge at Russia's Hmeimim Air Base, and thousands have crossed the border into Lebanon. Alexander Yuryevich, the commander of Russia's bases in Syria, warned Damascus security forces, “If you attack our bases, you will be reduced to ashes.”

The fate of civilians who did not manage to escape the massacre is unknown. In Al-Qusour, the Alawite neighborhood of Banyas, anyone unable to escape was reportedly killed. Syrian journalist Hala Mansour announced on her social media account that her aunt was killed in Al-Qusour along with her husband and two children.

Mansour is a dentist – her husband was a doctor, her older son a pharmacist, and her younger son a 10th-grade student. The head of the family had reportedly mediated between the opposition and the authorities on numerous occasions.

Hanadi Zahlout, an anti-Assad Alawite, also announced on social media that her three brothers had been killed. Hanadi, who was imprisoned several times by the former Syrian government, said in her post, “We were very happy with the overthrow of Assad and the victory of our resistance, but the first result was the massacre of our family.” Another Alawite opponent of Assad, Dr Abdellatif Ali, who served three years in prison, was also killed along with his wife and child. These are just among the first trickle of confirmed horror stories emerging from the scene of the massacre.

Videos taken by Damascus security forces themselves show smoke billowing from Alawite neighborhoods and villages as they are looted and burned to the sound of laughter and insults: ordinary families, old and young, slaughtered in their homes and gardens; bloodied bodies of men lying side by side in the streets or stuffed into pickup trucks and stomped on; and countless videos of unarmed civilians executed individually or en masse.

Journalist Sarkis Kassargian published images of mass graves, reportedly dug by HTS forces to conceal their atrocities. In response to international scrutiny, Damascus’s Minister of Defense, Murhaf Abu Kasra, abruptly banned the filming of operations.

Arab and Turkish endorsement of Damascus

Despite the outcry, the first international support for Damascus came from Saudi Arabia – Sharaa’s birthplace and his first foreign stop after assuming Syria's presidency. The Saudi Foreign Ministry's statement on 7 March condemned the “crimes committed by outlawed groups” and pledged support for Damascus’s efforts to “restore security and stability and maintain internal peace.”

Ankara followed suit. On 9 March, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking at a security summit alongside his counterparts from Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, framed the crisis as a “provocation” and urged Syria's Alawite, Christian, and Druze minorities to “avoid escalation.” Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Arab League all issued statements essentially backing the HTS-led government.

US–Russia consensus shocks Europe

Instead, it is the alignment of Washington and Moscow on this issue that has raised eyebrows – especially given the fact that the two states were on opposing sides of the Syrian war, and that the US actively supported the rise of Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups in Syria.

Russia’s Deputy UN Representative Dmitry Polyansky announced a joint US–Russia request for an emergency Security Council meeting over mass killings.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio strongly condemned “radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis” committing the massacres, and reaffirmed Washington's support for Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including Christians, Druze, Alawites, and Kurds. Moreover, Rubio demanded accountability from Syria’s interim government.

Europe, meanwhile, is reeling from the fallout. France and Germany, which had previously engaged with Sharaa and pushed for sanctions relief for his government, are now distancing themselves. French authorities are calling for an independent investigation, while German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock expressed shock at the massacres. Even Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar criticized European governments for legitimizing HTS.

Facing global condemnation, Sharaa is now attempting to backtrack. While he initially called on Alawites to “lay down their arms and surrender” while praising security forces for their “restraint,” western criticism pushed him to announce the formation of a “committee to investigate the coastal incidents” and a “committee in charge of communicating with the coastal population.”

The “unity president” went full spin, telling Reuters: “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.”

It is doubtful how far these announcements and platitudes will appease Syria's Alawites, who have just emerged from an unimaginable slaughter. After all, the perpetrators of sectarian crimes have not been held to account before by the extremist forces now settled in Damascus.

A deeply divided Syria

One of Sharaa’s most pressing challenges ahead will be the growing influence of foreign fighters – Chechens, Uighurs, Albanians, and Uzbeks – who were granted Syrian citizenship and military ranks for their “contributions to the revolution.”

Journalist Sarkis Kassargian notes contradictions in Sharaa’s statements:

“Sharaa claims all militants have joined the Syrian army, except the Kurds and Druze. Yet, he also admits that the massacres were carried out by his own security forces. The most optimistic scenario is that factions within his own defense ministry are acting independently.”

The Alawite massacres now set a dangerous precedent for the SDF in the northeast and armed Druze groups in the south – both of whom Sharaa seeks to integrate under a single military umbrella. One thing is clear: The sectarian bloodshed unleashed in Syria is the gravest threat to its unity. Kassargian personally interviewed Kurdish and Druze leaders who said:

“We are being told why don't you lay down your arms. But we knew this would happen.”

Noting that the Kurds had experienced similar massacres in Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and the Druze in Idlib – both at the hands of foreign-backed extremists – Kassargian believes that “Sharaa will have a very difficult time unifying Syria” because none of these groups trust him and his cadres.

Syrian-born journalist and writer Husnu Mahalli emphasizes that the western media narrative currently parroting Damascus's claims to be facing ‘an armed rebellion of regime remnants’ is largely false.

Mahalli reminds The Cradle that there are more than 15,000 foreign Salafi extremists under Sharaa's administration:

“These include Chechens, Uighurs, Albanians, Tunisians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Germans, French jihadis ... Sharaa's government has authorized these foreigners. The police chiefs they appointed in Latakia and its surroundings are Uzbek, Tajik and Albanian. How can it work with them running the law?”

Mahalli noted that last week, the Ministry of Endowments (Religious Affairs) replaced all moderate preachers and imams with radical imams, warning that “if [the HTS government] had any intention of ensuring Syria's unity, they would not have done this.”

The thing to watch, however, says Mahalli, is the unusual joint position of the US and Russia in the UN Security Council on the recent massacres, and he predicts that “they will give Sharaa maximum 3 months” to clean up his act and push through lasting reforms:

“A common position of the US and Russia will affect the Saudis and the UAE. The Saudis and Emiratis used to tell Assad, ‘Stay away from Iran, we will give you what you want.’ Now they can say to Sharaa, ‘Stay away from Turkiye and we will give you what you want, otherwise we will send you away’.”

Last week's HTS massacres have, in any case, fully exposed the sectarian hatred at the heart of Damascus's new leaders. Sectarianism is the biggest threat to Syrian unity, bar none. There are foreign and domestic parties that actively seek to fan these flames and fragment Syria, while others want the exact opposite.

The mass murder of hundreds of Alawites has done one sure thing – it has brought the issue to the fore and, over the next weeks and months, will expose the parties who seek Syria's division and those who are hellbent on unity.

https://thecradle.co/articles/in-syria- ... -civilians

SDF hails ‘real opportunity to build new Syria’ after deal with de facto government

The leader of the US-backed Kurdish proxy has signed a deal with self-appointed President Ahmad al-Sharaa to integrate the SDF into Syria’s new, extremist-dominated army

News Desk

MAR 11, 2025


(Photo credit: X)

The chief of the US-backed Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said in a social media post late on 10 March that the agreement he signed that evening with Syria’s transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa marks a “real opportunity to build a new Syria.”

“In this sensitive period, we are working together to ensure a transitional phase that reflects our people’s aspirations for justice and stability. We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and fulfills their aspirations for peace and dignity,” SDF chief Mazloum Abdi said via X on Tuesday evening.

“We consider this agreement a real opportunity to build a new Syria that embraces all its components and ensures good neighborliness,” he added.

The agreement signed on 10 March focuses on the integration of the SDF into all Syrian institutions.

The Syrian presidency said in a statement that the deal “stipulates guaranteeing the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process and all state institutions.”

“The agreement stipulates the integration of all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria within the state administration, including border crossings, the airport, and oil and gas fields,” the statement went on to say.

It calls for the “return of all displaced Syrians to their towns and villages and ensuring their protection from the Syrian state,” and SDF support for “the Syrian state in its fight against the remnants of Assad and all threats that threaten its security and unity.”

“The agreement with the SDF stipulates the rejection of calls for division, hate speech, and attempts to sow discord among all components of Syrian society,” it added.

The SDF was formed in 2015 with US support and has since served as Washington’s proxy in Syria, helping the US military maintain its occupation of the country’s oilfields. The group controls not only Kurdish-majority areas but also Arab-majority areas in the Deir Ezzor Governorate, where most of Syria’s oil resources are located.

It is closely linked to a de facto autonomous, Kurdish-led governing body in northern Syria, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

Since the new Syrian government came to power in December last year, there has been talk of a potential merging of the SDF into the country’s armed forces. There has been tension and disagreement over what this merging would entail, as Abdi has previously insisted on the group remaining under Kurdish command and integrating into the Syrian army as a military bloc.

The government, however, has called for the dissolution and integration of the SDF.

In an interview with Al-Majalla conducted in February and published on Monday, Abdi said that he has agreed with Sharaa on a “series of principles,” including “sovereign issues such as the unity of Syria’s territories, and that there be one army in Syria, that there be one institution, one capital, and one flag.”

“There are points that we agree on, but the implementation mechanism and timing need to be discussed and addressed. We agreed to continue negotiating and dialogue until we resolve matters, and we considered the meeting to be positive. The basic principle that we agree on is that there should not be two armies, but only one army,” the SDF chief added.

According to a report by Syria TV, the deal between the SDF and the Syrian government “was facilitated by direct American encouragement to Mazloum Abdi,” as well as US mediation.

Monday’s agreement came days after an armed uprising against the state and its security forces, carried out by cells affiliated with Syria’s former military, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).

The uprising triggered a massive security operation, during which government forces massacred over 1,000 civilians, mainly from the Alawite minority – the sect of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Members of different extremist factions that have been integrated into the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) Ministry of Defense and armed forces went door to door, killing civilians, including women and children. Many of the massacres were documented on video by the militants themselves.

While many of the perpetrators were foreign fighters, many others were Syrians.

Numerous extremist groups that have been incorporated into the Syrian army have a history of persecution and violent crimes against Kurds, including the Turkish-backed factions of what was known as the Syrian National Army (SNA).

Violent clashes between the SDF and these Turkish-backed groups have been raging in northern Syria since the fall of Assad’s government last year.

https://thecradle.co/articles/sdf-hails ... government

These people are fucked as soon as the US bails out.

******

Zionism: A Beneficiary of the Massacre of Syria’s Minorities
Posted by Internationalist 360° on March 11, 2025
Robert Inlakesh


The situation will never improve until the people break out of the spell of hating their own neighbors, who have lived, fought and died alongside each other for centuries. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Robert Inlakesh examines the rise of Sunni Nationalism in Syria, comparing it to Zionism and exposing its role in fueling sectarian violence and Western-backed destabilization.

The horrifying civilian massacres carried out across the Syrian coast are stupefyingly awful, on a scale reminiscent of the height of the ISIS insurgency in Iraq. Yet, there are still countless people identifying as Muslims who are trying to defend these actions. Their predominant ideology is not that of “Sunni Islam”, but rather of a nationalist identity rooted in a theological justification, in other words, a Muslims Zionism.

As a disclaimer, I write this as a practicing Sunni Muslim who is appalled at the way my faith has been weaponized to justify the very atrocities that Allah (SWT) tells us to fight against and prevent at all costs.

The Division of Syria

It has long been the agenda of the Zionist Entity to divide Syria into a number of weakened and defenseless Statelets, many of which it seeks to establish ties with and also of which justify its existence as a self-described “Jewish State”.

While the Zionist regime’s alliance with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has long been known, the Israelis doubled down on throwing their weight behind the group that controls Syria’s north-east on December 8, 2024. Simultaneously, the Zionists occupied the entirety of the Golan Heights and carried out their largest ever air campaign to destroy Syria’s military capabilities.

For years, the Zionist regime provided material and financial support, in addition to medical aid, to at least a dozen Syrian opposition groups, including Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda in Syria). Al-Nusra would of course later become Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now rules over Damascus with an iron fist. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who now prefers to go by Ahmed al-Sharaa, was originally an MI6 (British intelligence) project and was a former commander of ISIS.

The Zionists understood that the groups they were backing, including what would later become “HTS”, were led by foreign intelligence operatives, but that their rank and file were fanatical militants. This worked well for the Israelis in two ways: while the leadership of the group can be manipulated, the fanatical takfiris who actually believe in their group’s ideology are left to commit atrocities against civilians that will drive them towards federalization.

Although this history is largely forgotten, significant portions of Syria’s minority groups were in support of the movement to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, yet what changed their minds and made them rally around the former Syrian leader was the behavior of the sectarian death squads who ended up leading the Syrian opposition.

However, after 2018, as the Syrian economy went into steep decline and the civil war became a frozen conflict, the vision that many Syrians had adopted for their future had faded. The US and EU sanctions strangled the country and plunged the people of Syria into poverty.

By the time al-Jolani came to launch his assault on Aleppo, the entire State ended up crumbling and this occurred without any major fighting. On top of this, it appeared briefly as if the HTS militants were not going to carry out the kinds of massacres many had long feared they would.

Yet, after two months, the sectarian field executions did not stop, the Israelis were essentially at the gates of Damascus and the new government was still incapable of getting its affairs in order. The real question here is whether Jolani is part of a conspiracy to commit civilian massacres with the aim of dividing Syria, or if he is just a useful idiot that is behaving as a murderous dictator.

When the rebellion occurred on the Syrian coast, the instant response was the mass deployment of paramilitary forces and security services, while sectarian demonstrators chanted for the blood of the Alawites. The official justification for the massacres that followed – including civilians who had even been opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s rule – was that “remnants of the regime” were to be hunted down.

What followed was the largest gift to the Israelis that could ever have been given, sectarian gangsters burst into civilian homes and murdered men, women, and children. Even babies were not spared from the brutality of the new regime. Elderly men were tossed around, humiliated and shot in the streets, teenagers taken into the open and executed. When their Sunni neighbours tried to intervene to stop the massacres, they were murdered too.

It is clear that these actions were carried out with genocidal intent, and no reasonable person can deny the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. On a personal note, it is so bad that Sunni Syrian contacts of mine in Hama and Homs have told me that they are too scared to share their opinions on social media for fear of being targeted.

While it is certainly the malicious agenda of the Zionists to divide Syria, the blame cannot now be placed upon the reactions of the minority communities who seek to preserve their own livelihoods, but instead on the new administration in Damascus that has committed the atrocities. If the country continues on its current trajectory, there won’t be a country called Syria any more and this is the fault of the sectarian death squads who worked to divide the country.

The Israelis are now grinning, waiting for the opportunity to seize more territory and use collaborators to carve out a series of regimes that will work in their favour. Meanwhile, not a single bullet from Jolani’s men has been directed at the occupying entity.

Sunni Nationalism: A Muslims Zionism

When looking at the atrocities committed at the hands of Syrian de-facto leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani’s Security Forces and allied paramilitary groups, it is impossible for the sane mind to justify it. That’s why the Syrian and foreign cheerleaders for the fall of the previous regime now have to be separated into three categories:

The paid propagandist who has no principles.
The emotion-driven reactionary.
The Nationalist.
The first category is paid to publish propaganda, it is not far fetched to imagine some of them justifying the murder of their own family members for the right price, therefore their ideology is not so important.

The next category is those who have supported Abu Mohammed al-Jolani due to an emotional reaction they had to the fall of Bashar al-Assad, these people are not bad, but were duped by the propaganda. Many of them are scrambling to make sense of what just happened, after years of talking publicly about their “blessed revolution” that was fought to build a “free Syria”, they are now desperately trying to make sense of what is unfolding.

The third category that I believe needs to be properly addressed is the Nationalist. Why do I choose to label this group as Nationalists? Because that is what they are. This group has essentially copied the Zionist model and changed some minor details in order to arrive at “Sunni Nationalism”.

It is important to put this all into perspective. Zionism, as a form of nationalism, weaponized the Jewish faith to serve as its theological backbone. It used Judaism to argue that Jews from Poland, Spain, Russia, England, Iran, Yemen, Ethiopia, and so on, have the same identity and all somehow lay claim to the land of Palestine.

The Sunni Nationalist uses a version of Sunni Islam as their theological backbone, which also justifies their belief that a Sunni Muslim – whether they be from China, Uzbekistan, Germany, Portugal, Libya, Iraq, Pakistan or anywhere else – has the right to any region they choose, based upon religious justifications. The caveat is that the Sunni in question must agree with the group’s prevailing ideology.

In reality, Sunni Muslims from Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, or Jordan are completely different culturally, ethnically, and all speak different languages, yet under a Nationalist ideology, they can justify their takeover of Syria in the name of creating a rule for their identity group.

It could also be compared to White Supremacy, which also has landed itself the label “White Nationalism”. Although the White Supremacist may sometimes weaponize Christianity, it is less prevalent than in the other two cases that were mentioned, yet the same basic principle holds. It is a supremacist ideology, which claims that through adhering to Western principles and being “White” skinned, suddenly the plethora of ethnic and religious groups throughout Europe are all the same. This ignores cultural differences, genetics, and also a lack of shared languages, yet none of these matters to the ignorant White Nationalist who swears his/her group is superior and that “White” is a real identity.

When it comes to the Sunni Nationalist, who often fall under the Salafist branch, they cannot actually justify their stance based upon Islam, so instead they cherry pick quotes from Hadith or scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah. There is rarely ever any honest analysis about how Ibn Taymiyyah was reacting to cataclysmic developments around him, specifically the events surrounding the Mongol sacking of Baghdad that crushed a once dominant Muslim-Arab empire.

These Sunni Nationalists ignore nuance, their Sheikhs are almost all receiving finances from pro-Western Arab regimes and sometimes the Zionists directly. Ultimately, while some of their content may be genuinely just to do with religion, there’s another far more pernicious element for which they are paid handsomely. These individuals preach in the same way the religious authorities in Europe did in order to rally the crusaders around Christianity. Their message is political speech, cloaked in religiosity, with the purpose of pushing identity politics to justify a nationalist agenda.

Zionism is the exact same Nationalistic curse. Its claims do not make factual sense, as Judaism and history do not support its conclusions, but this does not matter to the Zionist. Perhaps the most powerful political ideology is nationalism, although the phrase may be traced back to French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, the basic concepts that make it possible are much older.

Just as Zionism is not Judaism, nor is Sunni Nationalism akin to Islam. These nationalist ideologies also breed delusion on a grand scale, a great example of this is the Sunni Nationalists who claim to support Palestine and seek the liberation of Al-Aqsa Mosque. These same people ignore the CIA and MI6 influence on what they call a “blessed revolution”, they ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into the project to overthrow the government. They ignore the civilian massacres carried out by Al-Qaeda affiliates and ignore even those same Takfiri groups receiving funding, weapons and medical aid from the Israeli occupation.

This level of mental gymnastics that results from the brain rot of their nationalist ideology allowed for some of them to parade around in the streets with photos of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, while celebrating the downfall of Baathism. In the end, they have a leader who receives the backing of the European Union, who signals intent for normalizing ties with the Israelis, who was once supposedly a hardline religious fundamentalist, but is now seeking a “democratic and pluralistic Syria” according to his recent speeches.

None of the economic or political moves that contradict what are supposed to be their core beliefs, which are frequently made by Ahmed al-Sharaa and his administration, are enough to sow a seed of doubt for these nationalists. Yet, this ideology will ultimately collapse with time, because it is totally dependent upon foreign backers and it will eventually lack a mortal enemy. As much as they try to fixate on Iran and “the Shia” as their enemy, this is a failing strategy.

While Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other Palestinian Resistance movements are struggling against the Zionist Entity’s brutal occupation on the frontlines, they receive support from the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance alone, with not one of these Sunni Nationalist groups even lifting a finger for them.

It is clear that the agenda to carve out Sunni Nationalism is a Zionist project, it not only uses self-described Muslims as warriors for the United States and Israeli interests, but also produces the perfect archetype to fit their orientalist depictions of Muslims. This is perhaps one of the most successful psyops in history, turning Muslims into hollowed out Nationalists who are obsessed with identity and care not for logic nor the teachings of their pure faith.

Already, the Zionists are jumping on the massacres that the Takfiris are committing, using them to portray Muslims as animals and claim that we as Muslims are hostile to Christians. Unfortunately, due to this Sunni Nationalist identity politics, many are now trying to make excuses for the mass slaughter of Syria’s minorities, which demonstrates how awful this ideology truly is.

In the wake of the war on Gaza, for the first time in decades, sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia began to fade. However, it is clear that the Zionist entity and its allies were not going to allow unity. Sectarian content is also being pushed far and wide. It is no mistake that a series called Muawiya was prepared just in time for Ramadan, nor is it a mistake that sectarian content is noticeably being promoted across social media platforms.

The Zionists and their allies want to divide the people, because if they unite, they understand that their project across West Asia will collapse. The enemy is not Sunnis, Alawites, Shia, Christians, Druze, Kurds or any other sect. The situation will never improve until the people break out of the spell of hating their own neighbors, who have lived, fought and died alongside each other for centuries.



Tonight we are going to be examining the outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria, how to best interpret the information/disinformation landscape surrounding the internal security situation in the country, and what external actors have a vested interest in having the violence continue.

We are joined tonight by Robert Inlakesh – a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker who has worked with TRT, Al MAyadeen, QUDS news, and is currently a staff writer here at MintPress News.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/03/ ... inorities/

[blindpig]

(Video at link.)

My visit to Akkar and meeting with Syrian refugees from Takfiri-project slaughter - the alleged White Helmet organ trafficking in Syria
My two reports for UK Column News yesterday
vanessa beeley
Mar 13, 2025

On Tuesday I went to Akkar in northern Lebanon to speak with recently arrived and severely traumatised Syrian families fleeing the Zionist-Takfiri genocide in Syria that is targeting minority sects with extermination - Alawites, Shia, Christian and even Sunni that reject Takfiri sectarianism. I will be writing up my report on the visit to Akkar - where we recorded chilling testimony, some of which I share in my UK Column segment. We could not film faces or share names because of the high risk to families that remain trapped inside Syria. I did audio record all conversations.

The sectarian killing is not isolated in the coastal areas as Western media would have you believe. It is not targeting the so-called “regime remnants” or “Assadist resistance” - it is targeting children, women, elderly, disabled civilians without remorse. Today this video is circulating, filmed in Damascus - the murder of a Syrian civilian walking in the street because he is “Alawite”: (Video at link.)

The smuggling crossing point in Akkar that the Syrian families are using to cross into Lebanon:





Testimony from a young woman in Syria: (Video at link.)

A post from Marwa Osman on Telegram explaining the sectarian history to the “revolution” Syria flag:

My friend AbdulMunem Zo'bi wrote on FB:

"In reality, the green flag was originally the flag of the French Mandate, imposed on Syria by France. It was part of a Franco-British scheme, with the three stars symbolizing three sects that were meant to govern Syria. It was a clear attempt to enforce sectarian division through legal means, effectively constitutionalizing sectarianism in the country.

The first star represented Sunnis, the second the Druze, and the third the Alawites.

However, these sects, along with the broader Syrian society, rose up against this imposed order, led by figures such as Saleh Al-Ali (an Alawite), Ibrahim Hananu (a Sunni), and Sultan Al-Atrash (a Druze).

Later, during the era of Arab unity—the formation of the United Arab Republic between Syria and Egypt—a new red flag emerged, symbolizing unity and the call for Arab solidarity.

This flag was later repurposed to represent the short-lived union between Syria and Iraq, which ultimately failed in its final stages.

So, who is truly sectarian? Who, whether knowingly or out of ignorance, contributes to Syria’s division? And who calls for unity? Sometimes, all it takes is a look at the flag to find the answer."

Hillary Clinton email: Israeli Intelligence says collapse of Syria will spark a Sunni-Shiite war that will benefit Israel:



Finally these are all the slides from Maxim Grigoriev’s White Helmet presentation at the UN Panel in 2018: (Video at link.)

https://beeley.substack.com/p/my-visit- ... dium=email

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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on 12 March that the civilian death toll from the recent massacres committed by Damascus’s forces against Alawites on Syria’s coast has surged past 1,000.

“SOHR documents three new massacres and warns of the dangers of mass burial of victims on the Syrian coast. The total number of victims rises to 1,383 civilians,” the war monitor said.

The number is expected to continue rising as bodies are still being found. Unofficial estimates from the past several days say the number of victims from the government’s massacres could be in the thousands.

Videos from 11 March circulating on social media show dozens of bodies strewn across the ground. Some of them were being buried in mass graves in several areas, including the village of Sanubir in the Jableh countryside, where many of the mass killings carried out by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) government forces along the Syrian coast took place.

Syria’s transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa – the former Al-Qaeda chief who was known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani and involved in numerous war crimes over the years – announced this week that his government will launch an investigation into the events that took place on the coast on 6 and 10 March.

Sharaa addressed the recent mass killings of Alawite Muslims, saying that such violence threatens national unity, claiming he would hold those responsible accountable during an interview with Reuters, published on Monday.

“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” he told the news agency from the presidential palace in Damascus.

What happened “became an opportunity for revenge,” he admitted, referring to the hatred that grew during 14 years of war.

Heavy clashes erupted on Thursday last week after security forces entered two villages near the coastal city of Jableh and were ambushed by cells affiliated with Syria’s former military, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). The new government mobilized reinforcements to be deployed across the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartous, marking the start of the widescale operation.

This set off a large and seemingly organized attack by SAA cells and allied groups.

Members of different extremist factions that have been integrated into the HTS-led Ministry of Defense and armed forces went door to door, killing civilians, including women and children. Many of the massacres were documented on video by the militants themselves.

The majority of the victims were people of the Alawite minority – to which former president Bashar al-Assad belongs.

While a significant amount of perpetrators were foreign fighters, many others were Syrians. A local source speaking with The Cradle on Monday said it is “clear” that official Syrian security forces took part.

As a result of the massacres, thousands of Alawites have crossed the border into north Lebanon over the past several days after fleeing in fear for their lives.

https://thecradle.co/articles/civilian- ... -past-1300

*******



More than 7000 massacred in Syria
Originally published: Defend Democracy Press on March 10, 2025 by Defend Democracy Press Staff (more by Defend Democracy Press) | (Posted Mar 13, 2025)

7,000 Christians and Alawites have been “slaughtered” in Syria according to Greek Member of the European Parliament, Nikolas Farantouris, a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Security & Defense, who visited Damascus on 8-9 March.

SYRIZA MEP Nikolas Farantouris has returned from the Syrian capital, where he met with religious leaders, including Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X of Antioch and the Near East, and officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the new regime in Damascus.

His visit over the weekend coincided as the forces of the Turkish-backed Islamist regime horrifically massacred Alawites and Christians, including Greek Orthodox, with the death poll being placed at over 7,000.

“Reliable data indicate 7,000 Christians and Alawites slaughtered and unprecedented atrocities against civilians. Christian and other communities with a millennial presence in this region are at risk of extinction,” Farantouris said in a statement following his visit.



“The new Islamic regime is leading Syria into an Islamic state and is pretending that it cannot control the paramilitaries and the gangs associated with them who attack innocent civilians,” he continued, adding that Patriarch John X made an appeal “to stop the bloodshed, while in our private meeting he pointed out the tragic shortages of food and medicine that Christians are facing.”

“I call on the Greek Government and the governments of [EU] Member States, to act now. Neither Greece nor the EU can continue to show tolerance and be limited to ceremonial visits and courtesies with the Islamic regime for investments and ‘business’ while thousands of civilians are being slaughtered with its acquiescence, if not its guidance. Measures must be taken here and now before it is entirely too late,” the MEP concluded.



The massacres over the past few days was the worst violence to hit Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in December.

Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group led the offensive that toppled Assad, alarmed by the international outrage has attempted to distance himself from the violence and vowed to “hold accountable, firmly and without leniency, anyone who was involved in the bloodshed of civilians”.

“There will be no one above the law and anyone whose hands have been stained with the blood of Syrians will face justice sooner or later,” he said.

However, amid international outrage, the new Syrian regime has also urged the Turkish-backed Islamist fighters under its control to stop recording the violence and massacres in an attempt to hide their crimes.

In a statement on official news agency SANA, defense ministry spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani said security forces had neutralized security threats and “regime remnants” in Latakia and Tartus provinces on the Mediterranean coast. Much of the violence against Alawites and Christians civilians has been under the guise of ending leftover pockets of Assad loyalists, but it has been documented that the elderly, women and children were murdered.

https://mronline.org/2025/03/13/more-th ... -in-syria/

[blindpig]

‘This Isn’t War. It’s Genocide’: Why the World is Silent About Massacres in Syria
Posted by Internationalist 360° on March 16, 2025
Mohamed Salah



Survivors of the violence against the Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities shares their stories with RT.

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant militant group in northwestern Syria, once presented itself as a local opposition force. Just over a month ago, the group was formally disbanded and became part of the Syrian Defense Ministry, yet its origins tell a far more sinister story. Born out of the ashes of Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, HTS carries the same ideological DNA as the world’s most notorious terrorist network. While it has sought to rebrand itself for international legitimacy, its methods remain unchanged: Massacres, ethnic cleansing, and the systematic extermination of those who do not conform to its radical ideology.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in Syria’s coastal cities, where HTS and its foreign recruits have unleashed an unspeakable wave of violence against Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities. Entire villages have been erased, their inhabitants slaughtered in the dead of night. Yet, as these horrors unfold, the world remains indifferent, and the silence of international powers only emboldens the perpetrators.

The massacre in Latakia: A night of unimaginable horror

In one of the darkest nights in Syria’s recent history, coordinated attacks on rural Latakia resulted in mass executions. Survivors tell of masked men storming their villages, dragging families from their homes, and carrying out public executions. Those who resisted were burned inside their homes, leaving behind entire neighborhoods reduced to smoldering ruins.

Testimonies from survivors suggest that many of the perpetrators were foreign fighters, brought in from regions far from the Middle East. “They didn’t even speak our language,” an elderly survivor told RT. “They had no idea who we were, no reason to hate us – except that they were told to.”

Entire villages have been abandoned, their populations either massacred or displaced. Satellite imagery confirms what survivors describe – rows of torched homes, mass graves hastily covered, and ghost towns where life once thrived.

The bloodbath in Tartus: A slaughter without mercy

Tartus, once a thriving coastal city, has become another graveyard. HTS fighters stormed residential areas, conducting door-to-door massacres. Families were accused of supporting the government or practicing the ‘wrong’ faith before being lined up and shot. Those who were not executed on the spot were locked inside buildings which were then torched.

A local journalist, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, described the scale of the killings:

There were so many bodies that people stopped counting. They weren’t buried properly – just dumped into ditches.”

Foreign fighters played a leading role in these atrocities. A humanitarian worker recalled speaking with a man who had barely escaped: “He told me he heard Chechen, Uzbek, and North African Arabic among the attackers. These weren’t local militants – these were imported killers, trained elsewhere and sent here to finish us off.”

Despite the horror, survivors insist they were never fighting for political power – only for survival. “We weren’t taking up arms to reclaim land or rule over anyone,” a displaced father from Tartus told RT. “We were just trying to stop them from killing our children in their beds.”

Jableh: The systematic erasure of a community

The violence in Jableh was particularly gruesome. Hundreds of men were rounded up, executed, and dumped into mass graves. Women and children were kidnapped, their fates unknown. Witnesses reported hearing gunfire for hours as the slaughter continued unchecked.

“They lined up all the men and took them away,” a survivor said with a voice shaking. “Later, we found their bodies piled on top of one another, shot execution-style.”

One woman who managed to escape described her captors: “They were foreigners. Some were Arab, others were not. They had dead eyes, no emotion.

To them, we weren’t people – we were just bodies to be destroyed.”

Another survivor, now living in a refugee camp, said, “People say we were fighting for power, but we were just trying to keep our families from being butchered. No one wanted war. We just wanted to survive.”

Executioners without borders

What makes these massacres even more horrifying is the sheer number of foreign fighters involved. Witnesses and survivors consistently report hearing different languages among the attackers, sometimes even Western languages.

“These aren’t local fighters,” a displaced resident now sheltering in Damascus said.

They were trained somewhere else, then sent here to do what they do best – kill.”

The involvement of foreign jihadists suggests a well-coordinated, externally supported operation, designed not just to fight a war, but to systematically erase communities. Intelligence sources indicate that these fighters were funneled into Syria through neighboring countries, trained in camps before being deployed to slaughter civilians.

The global silence

Despite overwhelming evidence of genocide, Western and regional media continue to present the massacres as “clashes” between HTS and government forces, deliberately sidestepping the mass extermination of Syria’s Alawite community.

A Syrian human rights activist, speaking under anonymity, condemned this distortion:

This isn’t war. It’s genocide. Yet, the world’s media avoids using that word because it doesn’t fit their political narrative.”

Western governments that once backed opposition forces are now reluctant to acknowledge the nightmare they helped unleash. By turning a blind eye, they enable the continuation of these crimes, and their silence serves as complicity in the atrocities.

The United Nations has remained largely passive, offering vague statements of concern but taking no meaningful action. Meanwhile, the perpetrators roam free, emboldened by the knowledge that no one will hold them accountable.

For the people of Latakia, Tartus, and Jableh, the message is clear: No help is coming. The world will not intervene. But history will remember. And the silence of the international community will forever be its most damning indictment.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/03/ ... -in-syria/

So typical of mercenaries after the war they were hired for is over.

[blindpig]

Syria’s Genocide: Claiming Over 10,000 Lives, Is Not a Sectarian Conflict but a Deliberate Western Strategy to Dominate the Entire Region
Posted by Internationalist 360° on March 20, 2025
Fiorella Isabel

r a collaborative effort by the Zionist-US empire and its NATO partners, to annihilate the region of its indigenous inhabitants, fulfill Greater Israel and reap all resources.

Most recently HTS militants illegally crossed from Syria into Lebanon and were confronted and killed by local forces. HTS responded by launching around 50 rockets in North Lebanon’s villages full of families. Israel simultaneously launched attacks in South Lebanon, violating the ceasefire yet again, with the combined attacks killing dozens of people. In conjunction with Jolani’s militants attacking Bekaa Valley Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes have targeted the same valley in support of Nusra front terrorists. The Lebanese army was deployed to investigate, prompting locals to launch rockets at the terrorist HTS factions. In Bekaa, both tribes and the army have confronted these terrorists. Additionally, Lebanese tribes along the Lebanese-Syrian border are now using drones to monitor HTS movements in response to ongoing attacks on their villages.

As these events unfold, some may feel embarrassed for having so quickly and eagerly normalized relations with the rebranded Western-Zionist intelligence puppet Al-Jolani and his group of violent extremists. Others like those in the Gulf-funded AlJazeera, who have been lying about Syria for the last 15 years, simply can’t turn back now and thus continue their lies, shifting blame to Assad and his supporters. However for anyone paying even a little attention, it was clear that this outcome was inevitable once the U.S.-backed Israeli-Turkish-Gulf plan to oust Assad and replace him with these Al Qaeda factions unfolded and Damascus fell. It has now been clearly demonstrated that Assad’s government, often labeled as a violent and authoritarian regime, was in fact the safeguard against this very outcome. It prevented the current collapse of the former modern, free, secular Syria where diverse faiths coexisted harmoniously and residents identified simply as Syrian.

On March 6, pro-Resistance groups launched a rebellion against the oppressive terrorist regime that seized control of Syria two months prior, ambushing HTS military personnel in Latakia and nearby areas, resulting in the deaths of at least 16 security forces. On the same day, radical Takfiri government troops began deploying to coastal cities—Latakia, Banias, Tartous, and Jableh—to confront what they labeled as “regime remnants,” or pro-Assad Resistance fighters. This ultimately led to mass executions and atrocities committed against every Syrian civilian who came into contact with these Wahhabi terrorist factions.

Most mainstream and international media, which tend to favor Israel and the West, have at best dismissed the numerous instances of harassment, assassinations, and executions of civilians in Syria as merely a “sectarian war”—implying it is driven by ethnic or religious motives. At worst, they engage in significant gaslighting by placing blame on the former Assad government and its remaining supporters. The problem is not only have Alawites been slaughtered, Shia, Sunni, Christian, and even Mennonites as well as other ethnic minorities have been targeted. Christian relics have fallen prey to destruction and even those who hated the Assad government have been speaking out against the atrocities targeting every single person, child or baby HTS encounters, while the mass media continue to talk about this as an “Islamic problem”. Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Dala, head of the Center for Research and Studies on Islamic Unity in Syria, was assassinated by the terrorist HTS forces for condemning the ethnic cleansing of Syria’s Alawites.

Media and international human rights organization have also diminished the slaughters to barely over a thousand instead of the over 10,000 that Syrians and journalists in Lebanon who are getting information from those refugees managing to escape the genocide, are reporting. There are also reports of water and bread being poisoned, a tactic also employed by Israel on Palestinians and HTS and Al-Qaeda in Syria, long before this year. An article from 2019 outlines how ISIS and Al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, allegedly poisoned the water supply in Syria.



Meanwhile the BBC has now given a number of over 1200 hundred people killed in Latakia, Tartous, Hama and Homs provinces, while other numbers from NPR estimate 1300, grossly understating the human toll. The UN has welcomed a “promise” by Syria’s unelected “interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa,” aka Jolani, to form an alleged “independent investigative committee” and to hold those responsible to account. This as the Ministry of Defense of the Syrian government has claimed that they plan to arrest “every violator who committed a crime against civilians on the Syrian coast during the military operation and orders that they be referred to the military court and the judiciary.” The account alleging this belongs to Mousa Alomar, a journalist for the new “free Syria” regime. He went on to state that what happened was “sad” and then blamed “Assad remnants”.

The obvious issue with this propaganda is that the current slayings continue and that the “Syrian government,” its military court and ministry are all made up of “former” Al-Qaeda members. Any punishments supposedly coming to these terrorist factions will be slaps on the wrists, symbolic gestures to quell the outcry. It’s as unserious as serial killers investigating themselves for murder. We can anticipate that the Western-Israeli powers responsible for instigating this situation will quickly intervene, attempting to present themselves as the solution to the chaos they created decades ago, even as violence persists.



Syria’s Demise Follows A Western-Zionist-Intel Orchestrated & Coordinated Blueprint, Spanning Decades

The idea itself of “Assad remnants” itself should also be marked as exactly what it is, a Western-Zionist fabrication meant to dehumanize and diminish the very real genocide of all Syrians. Recognizing this as valid legitimizes the notion that it is a genuine phenomenon, when in reality, the assassination of those who supported the former President for their political beliefs is not only wrong and fascistic but also fundamentally contradicts the “democratic free Syria” that Jolani and his Western backers claim to uphold. Moreover, this perspective disregards countless individuals who do not fit their criteria yet continue to be murdered. Thousands are currently fleeing Syria with little and attempting to start over because if they and their families stay they will be undoubtedly massacred. No one is at this point denying Syrias internal problems or even Assad’s alleged role in misdirecting them, but using the same talking Western Zionist points doesn’t stop the lies-it strengthens them. Pushing the “Assad remnants” narrative empowers the long-prepared ethnic cleansing of Syrians as “sectarian” or a valid punishment when it is in fact a result of serious coordination, planning and decades long execution by the West and its Zionist partners, seeking to isolate Iran, control the region and expand Greater Israel. Even now we’re seeing some Westernized “but Assad” commentators pretend that the 2011 protests in Syria, done by the White Helmets and radical factions were “unarmed” and met combated with brute force from the Syrian army. But the reality is that the Western-funded sectarian protests from 14 years ago were full of armed terrorist factions who attacked and murdered unarmed members of Syrian security forces in Daraa . All of this is reminiscent of what we are seeing today and never truly stopped in all of Syria’s efforts of fighting against the violence for over a decade.



The Zionist-Western war against Syria has been ongoing since before most of us reading this were alive. Journalist Vanessa Beeley carefully outlines the numerous CIA and MI6 interventions in Syria in her article from October 2021, 75 Years & Counting: A History of Western Regime Change in Syria Part I. Back in 1969 Miles Copeland, a former CIA officer, outlines in a BBC interview how the CIA organized and directed the failed coup of 1949 after Syria ended the colonial Vichy French occupation. Washington then ousted elected secular President Shukri Al Quwatli, who supported the Palestinian cause, opposed Zionism, and refused to recognize the state of Israel established under U.S. President Truman’s influence. Al Quwatli had also rejected the Trans Arabian Pipeline (TAPLINE), a joint venture involving Standard Oil of New Jersey (ExxonMobil), Standard Oil of California, and Texaco (Chevron), believing it would grant the US excessive influence in Syria.Of course the covert interventions went on as was outlined and exposed by WikiLeaks via an email thread to Hillary Clinton from July 23, 2012, where Israeli intelligence noted that the collapse of Syria and fall of Assad would spark a Sunni-Shiite war that would benefit Israel. They also mention that with the fall of Damascus under Assad, Iran would lose its only ally in the region and would thus be isolated. Zionist intelligence hoped that Iran would be drawn into the regional war, diverting its attention away from nuclear armament for some significant time, going as far as suggesting this could lead to the eventual fall of the current government of Iran.
In essence U.S.-funded Israel backed by the West, primarily Washington and Britain, would use its intelligence-birthed terrorist proxies including ISIS, Al Qaeda, White Helmets, and all spin-offs to destabilize Syria, remove Assad from power and continue supporting these groups until Syrians killed one another-exactly what we are witnessing right now via HTS and other terrorist factions. The reason why we’re not seeing any of the terrorist groups attack Israel, why we have not and likely never will, is clearly because this plan to destroy Syria originates in Western Zionism, with Israel as the main beneficiary to the generated sectarianism in Syria.
The email also mentioned how EU officials were concerned that the ongoing conflict in Syria would lead to uprisings in these countries that would bring “increasingly conservative Islamic regimes into power, replacing existing secular or moderate regimes.” Israeli intelligence also privately noted that while they considered Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s government hostile, it acted as a buffer between Israel and “more militant Muslim countries,” which was threatened by the “growing successes” of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Israel’s acknowledgment of the fact that the Western-funded groups were dangerous to anyone did not stop them from using them, but rather urged them to control and work with them to act against Assad. They also knew that attacking Iran at that moment was a bad idea that would have united the Axis against Israel, and instead as we now know chose to target Syria, Hezbollah, Palestine, Yemen and increasingly befriend and control the Gulf states including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

In the entirety of the most recent history of Western intervention and sabotage in West Asia, we can see that the goal is exactly to destroy Iran as it is the largest barrier to Israeli dominance in the entire region and to the finalization of Greater Israel. The current Trump administration, the most Zionist in US history, has repeatedly backed this foreign policy goal with their rhetoric against Tehran, their full support of Netanyahu’s policy on Palestine, their genocide in Gaza, their current slicing of Syria, the backing of HTS, the bombing of Yemen, their targeting of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the use of the Gulf to undermine Resistance. Let’s not forget to mention the billions continuously sent to Israel while Washington claims Iran is interfering in elections and China is influencing the U.S. government. This administration is tasked to target Latin America, West Asia, and China, and we are seeing the steps toward these actions unfold now.

The Gulf As Means to Isolate Iran & Turkey vs Russia-Israel In Syria

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Sunni-Islam theologian and the unofficial chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, who died on September 26, 2022 at the age of 96, was a prime example of the the treacherous Gulf sentiment toward resistance factions. Journalist Eva Bartlett outlined how Qaradawi pushed the killing of Syrian civilians, “It is OK to kill one third of the Syrian population if it leads to the toppling of the heretical regime,” he said. This we saw echoed in many pro-Palestine accounts that push the Zionist line, not understanding or purposely misconstruing that the same puppet masters are pulling the strings in the destruction of Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran and beyond. Saudi Arabia has long sold out to the West and Israel and the sectarianism manifested in Syria today was constructed and fueled by the Wahhabi, Muslim Brotherhood, and radical factions from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, with support from the Zionist West including NATO.

In reality Syria was invaded with the help of over 80 countries and thousands of terrorists from outside the country, all in attempts to divide people back then. Bashar al-Assad gave an interview in February of 2016 to El Pais and said he did not know whether Syria would have succeeded without the help of Russia and Iran but said, “we definitely need that help for a simple reason: because more than 80 countries supported those terrorists in different ways, some of them directly with money, with logistical support, with armaments, with recruitments. Some other countries supported them politically, in different international forums. Syria is a small country. We could fight, but in the end, there’s unlimited support and recruitment for those terrorists. You definitely need international support.”

The landscape of Russia’s interests in Syria changed in the years leading up to Syria’s fall and there’s consideration for several factors. One, Turkey is in control of the Black Sea grain corridor that Russia needs access to as the war in Ukraine has made this a necessity. According to multiple sources Assad’s pivot to the Gulf condemned by many, was largely pushed by Russia as Moscow had long engaged with both Saudis and Assad to bring them to have conversations. This was because the Putin wanted the Syria conflict to end as early as 2017 and from Russia’s perspective, there was a need to bring stability into a region that was far too unpredictable, chaotic and disorganized. Additionally Assad refused to have conversations with Erdogan which undeniably bothered Russia, who sought to resolve this conflict and move on.

At the meeting in Doha, Qatar on December 7, before the official fall of Damascus, Iran, Turkey, and Russia’s foreign ministers all met to discuss Syria in Astana format, while they also met with the Saudi Foreign Minister. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov acknowledged Washington’s role and their geopolitical game in Syria, saying Damascus should not be taken over by terrorists, but said all legitimate opposition should be heard. Iran’s Foreign Minister echoed these statements also advocating for dialogue between the Assad government and opposition groups. The very next day on December 8, the Syrian Army command notified officers that President Assad’s rule had ended and Damascus fell.

About a week later the Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a local TV channel NTV that Turkey played a pivotal role on ensuring Assad’s allies Iran and Russia did not intervene in the offensive that toppled Assad’s government, admitting Ankara’s role in training the Syrian terrorists he referred to as “rebels”. He reiterated that the Turkish Foreign Ministry had worked to ensure that the Russians did not enter the equation and that they all discussed these issues in Doha, with both Iran and Russia seeing no point in continuing this further. While it’s hard to rely on Turkey’s statements because of their tendency to manipulate wherever the wind favors them, such statements would not be made lightly so this is something to note.

The Russian government functions in a very pragmatic way, with bureaucratic tediousness in every facet of its institutions. While it understands the war in Ukraine is existential for them, they are fighting to survive and thrive not for an ideological purpose-which is directly opposite of how the Axis of Resistance functions.

A Resistance fighter may die but they will fight on knowing this because the cause is greater than themselves and the belief is not only existentially but ideologically driven, beyond immediate strategic gains and toward a moral, abstract understanding that no matter what they must fight their oppressors; survival is not merely physical. While this sentiment is shared by many patriots in Donbass who were willing to die fighting Neo-Nazis, for the Russian government the logical thing to do is find clarity, calm, and build up their economy, protect their national security interests and move forward in advancement as a nation not tied to anything other than belief in its own institutions, people and a desire to advance in the material. This is why you see Russia closely follow the UN Charter and diplomacy at every turn, to attain tangible gains. Many spectators with their own agendas or misunderstandings prefer to see things as they wish rather than as they are.

According to Ynet (also echoed by other media), in January Benjamin Netanyahu sent his military secretary to Moscow for a series of security and diplomatic meetings aimed at strengthening cooperation with Russia. Israel’s position on Syria is becoming increasingly clear: it favors Russian influence over Turkey’s expanding presence and is actively working to limit Turkish involvement. A key goal of recent Moscow meetings was to encourage Russia to pressure Hamas—via intermediaries—to facilitate negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages, including Maxim Herkin, a dual Israeli-Russian citizen, which Hamas had promised to abide by, but is now in jeopardy due to Israel’s new strike on Gaza. Let’s not forget that over 1 million Russians live in Israel and that there are those ties to Tel Aviv within Russia and outside as well.

Israel has also lobbied Washington to maintain a weak and decentralized Syria by allowing Russia to retain its military bases there, thereby countering Turkey’s expanding influence in the region. Netanyahu has escalated calls for the demilitarization of southern Syria and is pressing the U.S. to ensure that Syria remains “weak,” enabling Russia to keep its military presence as a counterbalance to Turkey’s efforts to forge a security alliance with Syria’s new leadership. He reaffirmed Israel’s military position in key areas of Lebanon and Syria, stating, “We demand full demilitarization of southern Syria from forces of the new regime and will not tolerate any threats to the Druze population.” For Russia, this arrangement allows them to maintain their base in Syria while establishing one in Libya, and reducing dependence on Ankara, which currently holds an advantageous position in these negotiations.

After the fall of Damascus, Russia was among the first to recognize the flag of the new Syria in its embassies and on February 12, Putin had a phone conversation with Jolani, discussing cooperation in trade, economic and educational sectors. According to Russian media, Moscow emphasized its position in support of “unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” for Syria, pushing for dialogue between factions. On the same day and almost immediately after Trump took office, he and Putin spoke on the phone for 1.5 hours for the first time since he returned to the White House. The discussions marked the initial phase of negotiations between Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine aimed at ending a conflict; conversations that had been planned long before Trump took office. These talks also encompassed issues related to the Middle East and Iran’s nuclear program. Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, seen as a supporter of Zionist interests, were both invited to Russia’s Victory Day parade on May 9 this year. While the U.S. did not receive an invitation, Trump was invited to Moscow by Putin, along with representatives from China. Notably absent from the guest list were Venezuela and Iran.

What’s true is that after Jolani handed southern Syria to Israel on a silver platter, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Jolani and took northern Syria and now Turkish forces have begun building a base at the Menagh military airport in the Aleppo countryside. These satellite images show extensive activity at the Menagh Air Base, north of Aleppo, confirming that the base has been transformed into a Turkish military facility just as orchestrated by Ankara. From this perspective it appears Israel, Turkey and Washington worked together to use the radical factions to partition Syria, but now Israel wants a larger piece of the pie, Erdogan is eager to establish dominance in key areas, and Washington wants to oversee everything, leaving the carcass of Syria to the vultures. Enter Russia who desires to keep its base and by siding with Israel simultaneously creates less reliance on Ankara, while still maintaining a relationship with Iran. Fanning the flames further, Erdogan has just announced that Ankara will never recognize Crimea as Russian territory, even though it’s been over ten years since they voted themselves to join Russia. Strategic diplomacy in an era of delicate boundaries, dubious eyes and allies, is all in a day’s work.

Iran has also been walking a fine line between current President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, both who have recently told Trump they will not be bullied into Washington’s threats and demands. While Pezeshkian is a reformist, the real power lies behind Khamenei and even if Iran had backed off Syria perhaps because Assad had pivoted away, it is still seen as a potential problem for Israel-hence why the US is increasingly building threats including using Iran as the excuse to attack Yemen, which Trump has done. While Iran embodies the spirit of Resistance for many, it is also a nation at risk of U.S. intervention, with political factions lurking in the shadows ready to alter the entire governmental landscape. A significant criticism directed at Tehran is its tepid response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza, falling short of both expectations and its potential capacity to retaliate against Tel Aviv. In truth, Iran faces a critical choice: to continue along the path of the Resistance struggle, potentially leading to all out war with the United States, or to pursue normalization with the West, which would likely result in a radical and unfavorable shift in government that could ultimately destroy its national sovereignty.

Just days ago Israel struck Damascus with Israeli military claiming that it was targeting “a command centre belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” which it said was used to direct “terrorist activities” against Israel. While there’s no evidence of this Israel was not met with any resistance from Jolani or HTS. There’s increasing tension with HTS coming into Lebanon with the excuse of targeting Hezbollah, as Israel gets to freely take over the rest of Syria and attack Lebanon while the U.S is bombing Yemen and the excuse is the increasing “danger” of Iran to Washington. Let’s recall the famous words from General Wesley Clark, relating to the post-9/11 plan made by the Bush Administration for endless war: “We’re gonna take out 7 countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off with Iran.” Iran is the last country standing on this list and this administration has been designated to carry out a plan to target it.

Recent events—including the collapse of Syria, the potential conclusion of the Ukraine war and its impact on alliances, the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing and rise of Wahhabi terrorist factions across Syria and the region, Israel’s aggression towards Lebanon, and U.S. and UK bombings in Yemen—represent a continuation of the War on Terror. Conflicts do not cease; they merely change their appearance and dynamics, which is a fundamental aspect of U.S. American foreign policy. The key takeaway for anyone engaging with Washington is to recognize that negotiating with these terrorists in expensive suits will only perpetuate conflicts in one form or another, as it is through such turmoil that they thrive.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/03/ ... re-region/

Syria, Resistance, and the Fight Against Foreign Agendas
Posted by Internationalist 360° on March 20, 2025
Myriam Charabaty



Syria, the beating heart of the Arab world, was not forged by Former President Hafez al-Assad, nor was its identity shaped by colonial borders drawn by Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot. Unlike lands carved to serve imperial interests, Syria has always been a stronghold of Resistance—besieged, yet unyielding.

Throughout history, Syria’s diverse social fabric has rejected sectarianism, instead choosing unity in the face of foreign domination. Today, as the Axis of Resistance solidifies its position as a formidable force, embodying both an Arab and Islamic identity that is inherently unifying rather than sectarian, the West perceives this identity as its greatest threat.

The dismantling of Arab identity begins with Syria. This is not a recent decision made in 2024 but rather a long-standing objective that gained urgency after October 7. For over a century, Syria has faced relentless attempts to be divided and subdued.

During the French occupation, France sought to win over Syria’s Christians. General Henri Gouraud famously told Faris al-Khoury that France had come to “protect the Christians of the East.” Al-Khoury’s response was both historic and defiant. Ascending the pulpit of the Umayyad Mosque, he addressed the worshippers:

“If France claims that it occupied Syria to protect us Christians from Muslims, then as a Christian, I seek protection from my Syrian people. And as a Christian, from this pulpit, I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.”

The worshippers lifted him onto their shoulders and carried him through the streets of Damascus, while Christians took to the streets in solidarity, chanting, “There is no god but Allah.”

This moment stands as a testament to the unity of the Syrian people—one that foreign actors have long sought to destroy. In 2010, the West launched the so-called Arab Spring as part of a broader attempt to dismantle Arab identity. While Syria has endured an arduous war, since 2011, the battle is far from over. Like all other conflicts in the region, the ultimate goal remains the same: fragmentation and subjugation.

Today, Syria’s enemies—Israel, the U.S., Turkey, and their regional proxies—continue their efforts to fracture the nation under false pretenses, offering “protection” and “salvation” from so-called Islamization. In reality, they manipulate terminology, distort narratives, and manufacture threats to justify their interventions.

Yet, the Syrian people—like all peoples of Resistance—reject oppression disguised as intervention, just as they reject the political project falsely masked as Islam but, in reality, rooted in British-born Takfirism.

The Foundation of Resistance is Self-Defense

The ongoing war on Syria is not sectarian—it is a war against Syria’s collective identity. Much like Zionism, the Takfiri project is foreign to the social fabric of the region. Conceived by the British, shaped by the Americans, trained by the Turks, assisted by Israel, and sustained by foreign mercenaries, Takfirism is merely another instrument of imperial control.

Yet the Syrian people are not passive victims. They understand that Resistance is the only means of survival. Hezbollah began with nothing but benzine reservoirs and broken headlights—today, it is confronting Israel and the U.S. with full force. Armed Resistance does not arise from privilege; it emerges from necessity, from the refusal to be slaughtered in silence.

To accept helplessness in the face of slaughter is unacceptable. History has proven that even with minimal means, people can fight back. The foundation of any Resistance is self-defense—using whatever is at hand. Simple yet effective means can shift the balance. If 10,000 people injure 5,000 attackers, the course of events changes. When one out of 100 operations succeeds, it alters the battlefield.

Resistance is the Only Path to Liberation

The enemy’s strategy is clear—massacres, terror, and sectarian division to weaken and subjugate Syria. But this war is not Sunnis against Alawites, Christians, or Shiites. It is Takfiris killing Syrians of all backgrounds. The true divide is between those defending Syria’s sovereignty and those serving a foreign agenda.

The portrayal of events In Syria as a “civil war” deliberately erases the real struggle—the war against Zionism, imperialism, and their mercenary forces. It serves to discredit naturally occurring Resistance and frame all opposition to HTS and its affiliates as reactionary, rather than as a national defense movement. This narrative denies the Syrian people’s agency and reinforces the false idea that Syria is merely a battlefield for foreign powers.

But the Axis of Resistance is not a passive actor. The unraveling of Sykes-Picot, while manipulated by Western powers, also presents opportunities for the region to redefine its political and military map in its favor. The Resistance in Syria is not just a reaction to Takfiri violence—it is a conscious movement built on 15 years of war, survival, and unwavering commitment to national sovereignty.

The Betrayal of the ”International Community”

The so-called “international community” has shown its true face in Syria, just as it has in Gaza. The UN and Western institutions do not intervene to stop genocide; they facilitate it when it serves their interests. In Syria, they whitewash HTS and push for direct Western influence over the coastal region. In Palestine, they fund the Israeli massacres.

The ethnic cleansing unfolding in Syria today is systematic—parallel to the Israeli occupation’s crimes in the West Bank and reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba. The killings in Banias, Homs, and Hama are not random; they are a calculated attempt to erase Syria’s minorities and fracture its Arab identity.

Despite this, there has been no statement from the Maronite Church—even though some of the martyrs from the Syrian coast were presumably its members. Even if they were not, the silence over the slaughter of innocent civilians speaks volumes. Christ never remained silent in the face of oppression. Yet, today, neutrality has led to complicity.

Unity is the Only Salvation

For Arab Christians, the only path forward is unity—unity with all the components of this nation, rooted in our Arab heritage. The Resistance is not a sectarian cause; it is a national and human one. Those who refuse to defend Syria’s armed Resistance, whether in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Yemen, Iran, or elsewhere, have blood on their hands.

It is not armed Resistance that brings destruction; it is the only force capable of preventing it. A life under occupation, oppression, and humiliation is no life at all.

The massacres In Syria demand a response—not in surrender, but in Resistance. The cost of Resistance is always lower than the cost of surrender. Syria has historically chosen dignity over submission; now is not the time to change that.

Let history record: Sunnis have risked their lives to protect Alawites and Christians in Syria. This is not a war of sects—it is a war between those who defend their Arab identity and those who serve foreign masters.

The enemy wears many masks. Whether they carry the Star of David, preach fake Islam, or bear the cross in service of imperialism, their agenda remains the same. The Arab world is changing, and Syria has the opportunity to shape its future—not through Western-dictated borders, but through the will of its people and the force of its Resistance.

A Call to Action

If you still view the war in Syria as a sectarian conflict, you are serving HTS, Israel, and the U.S. Syria is not on the brink of partition—it is fighting to remain whole. The blood spilled on Syrian soil is not the blood of sects but the blood of a nation.

The Resistance Is not a movement of despair; it is a movement of survival and liberation. It is the only force that ensures Syria’s future. Those who defend their Arab identity against Zionism, Takfirism, and Western occupation are the true defenders of Syria.

The world will not save Syria. The world did not save Gaza. The only salvation is Resistance.

Let it be clear: our martyrs are not for sale, and our blood is not for profit. Those who compromise on the narrative do so at the price of martyrs.

The cost of surrender is ethnic cleansing. The cost of Resistance is freedom. And Syria must collectively, as one, make its choice.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/03/ ... n-agendas/

[blindpig]

Genocide in Syria
By Daniel Kovalik - March 25, 2025 1


Portrait of life in Damascus. The horror lies beneath the surface of daily life. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

Alawites to the grave; Christians to Beirut.

— War slogan of anti-Assad militants

As this article was written, Syria experienced the worst days of violence since Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—formerly the al-Nusra Front of al-Qaeda—took power from President Bashar al-Assad.

Friday, March 7, 2025, is the date it may be said a genocide began in earnest in Syria. Reports published on social media and accompanied by gruesome videos—filmed by the killers themselves—indicate hundreds, if not thousands, of Syrians (mostly Alawites, but also Christians) were killed in sectarian violence.

According to witnesses interviewed by The Grayzone, “most of the perpetrators were foreign militants; Uyghurs, Chechens and Uzbeks affiliated with HTS, and only a small percentage were Syrians. Following the downfall of Assad, the HTS-led government absorbed foreign jihadists into its military and appointed some to senior roles.”

In the early hours of Monday, March 9, 2025, an Alawite friend in Damascus sent me this message after not responding to a text the night before:

“Dear Dan. I’m sorry. Was broken. When called a friend’s phone in Latakia. To be answered by a jihadist. Telling me that he killed her. Offering me the same fate of my friend. I am sorry I didn’t reply to your call. I think I had a panic attack. Breathing seems very hard now.”

My friend asked if I thought the jihadist was lying or whether her friend could still be alive. I said I prayed she was alive. Before noon, my friend wrote again, enclosing a photo of her friend, dead on the floor of her home, next to another dead woman. They were shot at close range. The accompanying message read: “She’s gone Dan. That’s her in the pink pajamas. I just had some hope. Her name was Nagham. I hope she will be in a better place than Syria.”


]Greetings,

I am an Alawite girl from the Syrian coast, a 26-year-old pharmacist. I am writing this letter in secrecy to protect my life and the lives of my family.

I was deeply pleased to learn that you have been appointed as an adviser to the Alawite Association in the United States, hoping that you might help put an end to the systematic genocide aimed at the ethnic cleansing of the Alawites.

Mr. Kovalik,

I have witnessed firsthand what has happened. Jihadi gangs, along with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, stormed the coastal region, massacring elderly people, children, women and unarmed young men. They burned homes, livelihoods and everything that sustained our existence.

I now live with my family in a remote village—six days without electricity or water. My friends in other villages are hiding in the forests with their families, despite the cold weather and the lack of food and milk for their children.

All of this has happened in just a few days…

And beyond these recent events, over the past three months, 9,000 young men who were in the Syrian army were arrested after surrendering their weapons under guarantees of safety. We have no information about them or their fate. My own 23-year-old brother is among them—I have not heard anything about him for three months.

After that, thousands of other young Alawite men were also detained. We have been dismissed from our jobs, while kidnappings, killings, and forced displacements continue.

I am hoping for help to stop this.
I am hoping to see my kidnapped brother again or at least to learn something about his fate.
I am hoping to return to my job and pursue the dreams that are being mercilessly destroyed.
I apologize for the length of my letter,
but our hearts are weary, and we place great hope in you.

Thank you.


She sent me grisly videos, which the killers had posted on social media:


There are many more, but my heart can’t take it anymore.


Please, help us. They want to exterminate the Alawites, that’s what they’re saying.


We are now fleeing in the forests.


Please, I’m sending this to you. If they find out, they will kill me and my family.


Please, we want peace.


I want to see my kidnapped brother.


I want to live in safety with my friends.


We are not remnants of the regime.


The forests, however, were not safe as HTS forces, in an effort to kill those fleeing, burned entire woods to cut off escape. At the time of writing, my new pen pal was alive.


HTS leader Mohammad al-Jolani. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

While there is scant reporting on the massacres in the Western press, the Greek City Times reported:

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said on Friday that more than 225 people have been killed since Thursday. However, this is believed to be a gross underreporting, with activists on the ground, such as Coast Youth Forum, believing the death toll could be as high as 1,800…

Syria’s new regime, led by so-called transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa, has for months been massacring the Alawite minority, as well as Christians, under the guise of eliminating remnants of the former Assad dictatorship…

The latest massacres mark a sharp escalation though, with disturbing videos seen by Greek City Times showing the execution of civilians, women, children and the elderly. . .

One video shows the Turkish-backed jihadists desecrating a Christian icon in Tartus. The militant says, “Our guardian is Allah, and you have no guardian,” accusing Christians of idol worship.

The number of those murdered in what is clearly a genocidal campaign appears higher than the official figures. Greek European Union Minister Nikolas Farantouris, who spent two days in Damascus during the weekend of violence, reported:

Reliable data indicate 7,000 Christians and Alawites slaughtered and unprecedented atrocities against civilians…communities with a millennial presence in this region are at risk of extinction.

The new Islamic regime is leading Syria into an Islamic state and is claiming that it cannot control the paramilitaries, and the gangs associated with them who attack innocent civilians.

A week later, the Telegram channel Syrian Christians posted an interview of Syrian actor Bashar Ismail with Sky News, where he estimated 22,000 individuals (Alawites and Christians) had been killed since March 7.

As Syrian Christians noted, if this figure is correct, it would exceed the entirety of civilians killed in Syria between 2018 and 2024, more than the annual number of civilians killed in 2011, 2016 and 2017, and roughly equal to the annual number of civilians killed in Syria in 2012 and 2015!

In addition to those killed, it is estimated 200,000 civilians were displaced.

Three Patriarchs of the Syrian Christian Churches (Syriac Orthodox, Greek Orthodox and Melkite Catholic) released a joint statement on March 8, stating:

In recent days, Syria has witnessed a dangerous escalation of violence, brutality, and killings, resulting in attacks on innocent civilians, including women and children. Homes have been violated, their sanctity disregarded, and properties looted—scenes that starkly reflect the immense suffering endured by the Syrian people.

The Christian Churches, while strongly condemning any act that threatens civil peace, denounce and condemn the massacres targeting innocent civilians, and call for an immediate end to these horrific acts…


Some flowers blooming amidst the rubble. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

Surprisingly, the U.S. Department of State published a statement on March 9 which accurately described the violence and stated it condemns the killers and, “the United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite and Kurdish communities…”

Despite this condemnation, the U.S. and its military—which continues to occupy one-third of Syria—continues to collaborate with HTS leaders and the U.S. military has been working behind the scenes to negotiate a deal between HTS and various militia forces in order to unify the country under HTS rule. This, despite the fact that HTS and its leader al-Jolani himself, continue to remain on the U.S. terrorism list.

For its part, the European Union (EU) released a statement that was indicative of most of the Western coverage of events:

“The European Union 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.”

Unsurprisingly, after the weekend killing spree, al-Jolani was invited to Brussels.

To its credit, the European Conservative condemned the invitation:

The European Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, has invited the interim Syrian government to Brussels for a donor conference. This decision—designed to promote investment in the country to secure strategic resources—comes just days after the massacre of thousands of civilians from ethnic and religious minorities at the hands of the army and militias affiliated with the Islamist terror group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).

Despite the severity of these events, the European Union continues to provide financial and political support to the new Syrian administration without questioning its ties to these extremist groups.

The Associated Press (AP), which is representative of Western coverage of these massacres, was late in reporting on them and, when it did, attempted to write them off as “clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad…”

But, as always, the devil is in the details and the details provided in the AP report belie the claims of “clashes” between armed groups. Thus, as the AP explained in its deceptively titled report, “2 days of clashes and revenge killings in Syria leave more than 1,000 people dead,”

…[the] revenge killings that started Friday by Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect are a major blow to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the faction that led the overthrow of the former government. Alawites made up a large part of Assad’s support base for decades.

Residents of Alawite villages and towns spoke to The Associated Press about killings during which gunmen shot Alawites, the majority of them men, in the streets or at the gates of their homes. Many homes of Alawites were looted and then set on fire in different areas, two residents of Syria’s coastal region told the AP from their hideouts.

There is no evidence of “clashes” here; just wanton murder and mayhem. In addition, many women were killed, proven by numerous photos of the victims on social media. Apparently, these deaths were not convenient to AP’s narrative.

Meanwhile, the AP description of violence in one coastal town paints the picture of unarmed civilians being gunned down:

Residents of Baniyas, one of the towns worst hit by the violence, said bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them. One resident said that the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbors killed Friday at close range.

Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of Baniyas who fled with his family and neighbors hours after the violence broke out Friday, said that at least 20 of his neighbors and colleagues in one neighborhood of Baniyas where Alawites lived, were killed, some of them in their shops, or in their homes.

Where are the alleged “clashes”?

The violence perpetrated by HTS militias was so grisly and shocking that some of its own members denounced it:

Muhammad Abu Obaidah, a fighter from HTS, speaks out with tears in his eyes, condemning the brutal massacres committed in Baniyas and Jableh.

“Did our religion command us to do this? Were the Prophet’s teachings like this? Forcing people from their homes and executing them in cold blood?”

HTS’ own members are breaking ranks—the truth can no longer be hidden. Even their fighters can’t stomach these crimes.


Shrine to the Assads and Ayatollah by one member of the targeted populations of the U.S.-backed genocide in Syria. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

Notably, while HTS has the wherewithal to carry out mass atrocities against Syrian civilians, it has not challenged Israel’s takeover of huge swaths of southern Syria, including Mount Hermon. Completely unmolested, Israel has set up nine military outposts in Syria since the HTS takeover.

But of course, this was according to plan.

Sadly, the atrocities we are witnessing today were predictable from the conduct of al-Nusra forces and allied terrorist groups during earlier years of the war on Syria, all enabled by a compliant Western press, which sanitized, promoted and even lionized the terrorists.

In 2021, I twice visited both Lebanon and Syria. What I learned there was at variance with what we were told in the media.

One of the first people I met in Damascus was Yara Saleh, an affable woman serving as a reporter for the Syrian News Channel, an official state news agency.


Yara Saleh [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

Yara, while reporting in 2012, was kidnapped by the Free Syria Army (FSA) just outside Damascus and held for six days, until she was rescued in a daring mission by the Syrian Arab Armed Forces (SAA). Yara’s kidnapping and rescue became the subject of a movie which my delegation was invited to watch at its premier. I contacted Yara afterwards, to hear the story in her words.

Almost a decade later, Yara was still shaken by the earlier abduction. She was thin, ate nothing, and chain-smoked as she told her story. She told me she was traveling with a driver (Hussam Imad), a cameraman (Abdullah Tabreh) and an assistant (Hatem Abu Yehya) to report on clashes between the SAA and forces she described as “armed terrorist groups.” She wanted to report on the impact of the burgeoning war and the terrorist threats upon civilians.

While traveling to their destination (a Damascus suburb called Al-Tell), Yara and her colleagues were stopped and detained by armed men who took their possessions, including phones and money, and beat all of them, including Yara. Yara, a petite woman, said the beatings were quite hurtful. She told me the armed men kidnapped them after discovering they worked for the Syrian News Channel.

They were driven to a location with hundreds of other armed militants. En route, one of the captors held Yara’s head down between her legs.

Yara said the militants appeared to be led by a foreign sheikh. I would later hear similar stories elsewhere in the country, like Douma and Jabar. In these areas, terrorists took over the cities via long tunnels connecting them to Jordan, from where they entered, and began to kidnap, beat and enslave people and kill those of religious faiths different from the fanatical doctrine of Wahabism, which was advocated by the terrorists.

One of the first questions Yara and her colleagues were asked was of their religious background. All of them were of “mixed” traditions in Yara’s words. Yara stood out because she wore make-up and no head covering. I found out recently Yara is an Alawite. Like many of her fellow Syrians, Yara sees herself as Syrian first, an identity more important to her than her religious sect. Before the sectarian violence, Syrians did not wear their religions on their sleeve and would not ask others what their religion is, something that was considered rude.

The sheikh said they would be executed for working with the government and because of their mixed religious affiliations. Yara’s colleagues, Hussam and Hatem, were taken to a nearby location. Yara then heard the sound of gunfire. She believed both were killed. However, Hussam was brought back. He tearfully informed Yara he witnessed Hatem murdered by a spray of bullets.

Notably, Yara explained the terrorists were taking orders from someone in Turkey and were told to take them there. The terrorists planned to negotiate their freedom with the Syrian army, and if the army did not give in to their demands, they would be killed. Yara asked one captor if they would be released if the army complied. He answered in the negative, saying that they would continue to hold them to gain more concessions.

Yara said she was not certain where the terrorists were from, but some sounded like they were from Saudi Arabia and Libya.

During her captivity, Yara was subjected to physical and psychological torture. She was incessantly beaten, particularly in the first two days, and was made to wear a hijab and abaya. The terrorists referred to their captives as “infidels.” They forced her Christian cameraman to pray as Muslims do. They were moved around a lot and kept underground in the dark, with rats. The little food they were given was inadequate.

Yara said she was threatened with sexual violence and believed had she not been rescued or if the fighters were not distracted with clashes, these threats would have been carried out.

Eventually, the Syrian army surrounded the area in order to rescue them. The terrorists attempted to escape using Yara and her colleagues as human shields. However, they were able to escape to the safety of the army. Yara said she was elated when the army arrived and was moved to tears when she saw they were flying the flag of Syria.

After her experience, Yara was convinced the terrorists fighting the government stood outside of civilization and that darkness would descend upon Syria if they gained power.

I am still in touch with Yara. While she is devastated by the fall of the Assad government and is worried about where the country is headed, she believes in Syria and her people and believes the country will rise again. She is one of the bravest people I have ever met.

Also in 2021, I visited a primary school in the Ikrimah neighborhood of Homs which witnessed one of the worst atrocities of the war. In October 2014, terrorists attacked the school with two car bombs in what is known as a double-tap attack. The first bomb killed numerous children. The second bomb was timed to kill parents who rushed to check on their children after news of the first explosion was reported on the radio. Some 45 people in total were killed, including 37 children, and more than 110 were injured, the majority of them children.


Pillar at the Ikrimah Primary School, memorializing children who were killed in the 2014 attack. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

On October 2, 2014, the Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic sent identical letters to the United Nations Security Council and UN Secretary-General denouncing the attacks, foreign support for the terrorists and the world’s silence. In pertinent part, the letters read:

The available information indicates that the two terrorist bombings were planned and executed by the terrorist groups which the Western States and their regional proxies enthusiastically refer to as the “moderate armed opposition.”

The killing of innocent children and other civilians can have no justification. Yet the international community, as represented by the United Nations, has not condemned the crimes of the armed terrorist groups. Nor has it spoken out against the recent terrorist attacks on schools. The latest incident was but one example; others include the targeting of the Badruldin al-Husayni Faculty of Legal Sciences, the Darulsalam School and the Manar School.

The murder of schoolchildren in Homs encapsulates the ideology and modus operandi of the terrorist groups, who have directed their hatred and lawlessness at Syria’s children, and not for the first time. On another occasion, terrorist groups struck against children under the age of three, when fictitious health-care agencies belonging to the armed terrorist groups conspired with the Turkish authorities to cause a humanitarian disaster that claimed the lives of 15 innocent Syrian children, who had been given expired and poisoned vaccinations for measles. Dozens of other innocent children suffered asphyxiation.

The assertion that the terrorists were amongst the “moderate rebels” and supported by foreign powers, including the U.S., turned out to be true. As the principal of the school explained to me, this attack was carried out by the FSA which former President Barack Obama stated was the main group the U.S. was supporting in Syria at this time.

The school principal expressed deep gratitude to President Assad, who supported the swift rebuilding of the school, and she gave me a tour of the restored facilities. She expressed particular thanks to First Lady Asma Fawaz al-Assad, who visited the school shortly after the tragedy to give condolences to the families affected. She proudly showed me photos of the First Lady’s visit.


The First Lady’s visit to the school. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

Also in Homs, I visited the Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt, a Syriac Orthodox cathedral which claims to house a portion of a belt worn by the Virgin Mary. The current church was built in 1852, but the original church, which can be visited underneath and is essentially a cave, was built in 59 AD, making it one of the oldest churches in the world.

In 2012, the FSA attacked this church, destroying ancient relics and burning portions of it. As the pastor of the church told me, before the FSA arrived, members of the church, escorted by the Syrian Arab Army, had moved the belt of Mary to another city and hid it there.


A church icon damaged by the FSA in 2012. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]
I was surprised to learn it was Hezbollah, along with the SAA, which helped defend the church and drove the FSA away. The church was heavily damaged, but was fully restored by 2014. The pastor was grateful to the government for its efforts to save the church and the belt of Mary which, by the time I had visited, was housed there again.


Pastor of the Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt. [Source: Photo courtesy of Dan Kovalik]

While those who opposed the government have tried to blame Assad for provoking the attacks upon Christians, which began early in the war, the Telegram group Syrian Christians tells a different story. As they explained recently, in a post captioned, “Who is inciting against Christians in the Valley of the Christians”:

Since the fall of the Baathist regime, the valley [in the western part of Homs Governate] has become a hotspot for escalating crimes and violence, marked by a distressing surge in murders and kidnappings orchestrated by jihadists. This once-peaceful region now grapples with fear and uncertainty…

As Syrian Christians explained, Christians took up arms to defend themselves against terrorist attacks. On March 17, 2025, Syrian Christians reported that “Christian fighters who defended their town against jihadist terrorists during the war are now being taken and tortured in Jolani’s prisons.”

Just as Christians took up arms, so did Alawites. Indeed, I am close to some Alawite fighters who fought alongside the army. These individuals were not fans of Assad and were critical of many of his government’s policies. However, they explained, they knew they were fighting darker forces. And now that Assad’s government has fallen, they and their families live in terror in places like Homs and Latakia. They will not go to work, attend school or to worship. At most, they leave their homes to buy food, and sometimes not even then. The forces they were fighting have taken over, and all they wish to do now is leave Syria. At least for the moment, however, they are trapped.


Naila Kauser contributed to this article.

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2025/0 ... -in-syria/

[blindpig]

Syria’s interim government arrests senior Palestinian resistance leaders

Analysts perceived the move as an attempt by Al-Sharaa to appease the US in order to have the sanctions on Syria lifted.

April 23, 2025 by Aseel Saleh


President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas visits President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Syria. Photo: Laith Arafeh/X

Syrian security forces arrested two top resistance leaders affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Syria’s capital, Damascus, on Sunday, April 20.

According to media reports, the detained senior officials are:

Khaled Khaled – Head of PIJ operations in Syria
Yasser al-Zafari – Head of the PIJ’s organizational committee
The Saraya Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of PIJ, explained in a statement that Syria’s interim government “did not clarify the reasons for the arrest.” It also reproached the Syrian authorities because the arrest was carried out in a way that the PIJ would not have hoped to see from their brothers, “whose land has always been a haven for loyal and free people.”

The PIJ further urged the Al-Sharaa administration to release its detained leaders saying: “We hope that our brothers in the Syrian government will release our brothers who are in their custody, and we are hopeful that you are worthy of the Arab chivalry with which guests are honored and the people of truth are supported.”

“We affirm that our rifles, since their launch, have been aimed only at the enemy’s chests, and have never deviated from their primary goal, which is the entirety of Palestinian territory. When the Al-Quds Brigades offered martyrs from the Syrian arena, they offered them on the borders of occupied Palestine,” the PIJ asserted.

Cracking down on Palestinian resistance is a US condition for lifting the sanctions
The detention of PIJ leaders came two weeks after the US Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Levant and Syria, Natasha Franceschi, provided Syria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Asaad al-Shibani, a list consisting of eight demands for lifting the sanctions on his country. One of the demands stipulates banning all Palestinian armed and political activities, and deporting members of Palestinian groups to “ease Israeli concerns.”

The incident also occurred two days after the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, visited Damascus, where he met Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Al-Sharaa is seemingly trying to distance himself from the Axis of Resistance by not only cracking down on resistance leaders within the Syrian territories, but also by strengthening the ties with Abbas, who is well-known for countering resistance against the Israeli occupation and promoting security coordination with Israel instead.

To prove himself as a statesman, who has supposedly disposed of his previous image as a jihadist, in the eyes of the US and other Western countries, Al-Sharaa is making every effort to confirm his ability to maintain Syria’s stability and therefore the stability of the entire region.

The recent developments in Syria have, for many, made clear that for the US, security and stability means guaranteeing free reign for Israel to wreak havoc in countries across the region with no response or resistance. Al-Sharaa appears to have understood this equation, and has consequently chosen to wave the white flag before Israel despite its recurrent assaults against Syria.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/23/ ... e-leaders/

[blindpig]

UAE detains Syrian Defense Ministry official at Dubai airport

Buwaydani is the head of Jaish al-Islam, a faction in Syria’s new military that has committed many war crimes, including using civilians as human shields

News Desk

APR 28, 2025


(Photo credit: X)

Issam al-Buwaydani, a Syrian Defense Ministry official and head of the extremist Jaish al-Islam organization, was recently arrested by Emirati officials at Dubai International Airport.

Two sources told AFP that Buwaydani was detained at Dubai's airport last Thursday as he was leaving the UAE. According to the sources, the official had entered the country with a Turkish passport.

“We do not know the reasons for his arrest,” one source said, adding that he was in the UAE on a “private visit.”

“The Syrian government has been in contact with the Emirates,” but did not receive a response, the source added.

Jaish al-Islam military spokesman Hamza Bayraqdar released a statement calling for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Buwaydani, referring to him as “one of the symbols of the Syrian revolution.”

The UAE has not confirmed the arrest of the Jaish al-Islam chief.

After the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government in December last year, Jaish al-Islam was incorporated into the new Syrian army, which is dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a former Al-Qaeda affiliate – and numerous other extremist armed factions that were backed by Turkiye.

After 2018, the extremist group was part of Ankara’s proxy, the Syrian National Army (SNA), but had previously been a standalone organization that was based in Ghouta in the Damascus countryside.

It is responsible for many war crimes, including indiscriminate shelling and putting civilians in cages to use as human shields against airstrikes launched by the former Syrian government.

This is from BBC's new 3 part documentary on House of Saud. Talks about Saudi funding for Syrian terror group Jaish Al-Islam. For those who still refer to this group as moderate rebels, please watch to see how Alawite women were paraded in cages. #Syria pic.twitter.com/we7PzsfNAK

— Ibn Walid (@walid970721) January 13, 2018

In the early years of the war in Syria, Jaish al-Islam received millions in funding from Saudi Arabia. Buwaydani became the leader of the organization in 2015 after a Russian airstrike killed its former chief, Zahran Alloush, who openly called for “crushing the skulls” of minorities in Syria.

Scum of the earth #Syria #Jaish_al_Islam #ModerateRebels #Zahran_Alloush https://t.co/2TViGmtKds

— Ibn Walid (@walid970721) October 26, 2015

Buwaydani’s arrest by UAE authorities comes as Majdi Nema, a former member of Jaish al-Islam, is set to go on trial in France this week for involvement in war crimes in Syria between 2013 and 2016.

Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani and is the former head of HTS and its precursor, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, visited the UAE earlier this month. His government has recently been working to secure international support and relief from sanctions imposed on the former administration in Syria.

In early March, the forces of Sharaa's government killed over 1,700 Alawite civilians in a campaign of massacres carried out during an operation to quell an armed uprising launched by cells affiliated with the former Syrian army. The sectarian killings have continued since then, despite international condemnations and an investigation opened by Damascus.

https://thecradle.co/articles/uae-detai ... ai-airport

Syrian president condemns Kurdish calls for federalism

Kurds and other minorities in Syria are concerned Ahmad al-Sharaa is constructing an extremist religious government that excludes non-Sunnis

News Desk

APR 27, 2025


(Photo credit: Abdulaziz Ketaz / AFP)

The office of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa condemned recent Kurdish calls for federalism in Syria, saying they contradict an agreement reached between Damascus and authorities from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the country's autonomous northeast.

Sharaa's office issued a statement calling on the SDF to sincerely adhere to the agreement concluded with the Syrian government and to prioritize the supreme national interest.

On 10 March, SDF leaders reached a deal with Sharaa's government to integrate its forces into the Ministry of Defense. The SDF currently controls northeast Syria, administering it alongside occupying US forces as an autonomous region. The SDF-controlled northeast includes Syria's largest oil fields.

The SDF leadership cannot monopolize decision-making in northeastern Syria, the statement from Sharaa's office added, while warning against disrupting the work of Syrian state institutions in areas controlled by the SDF.

"The unity of Syria, its land and people, is a red line," the statement concluded, while claiming that the rights of the Kurds, as well as the rights of all components of the Syrian people, will be protected.

Sharaa issued the statement in response to calls for federalism issued following a conference to promote Kurdish unity that took place in northeast Syria on Saturday, 26 April.

The Kurdish Unity and Consensus in Western Kurdistan Conference gathered over 400 Kurds from Syria, Iraq's Kurdistan Region, and Turkiye.

Kurdish political groups attending the conference agreed on a joint vision for a "decentralized, democratic state" that guarantees Kurdish rights and calls for a national dialogue to reshape the country's future, according to the final statement issued by the conference.

"The vision safeguards Kurdish ethnic rights, upholds international human rights principles and treaties, and promotes women's rights and participation across political, social, and military spheres," read the statement.

"It contributes to building a new Syria that accommodates all its people without exclusion or marginalization of any of its components, away from unilateral domination in thought and practice," the statement read.

The conference's final statement recommended that its vision be adopted as a foundation for national dialogue among Kurdish political groups and between Kurds and the new administration in Damascus.

Kurds in northeast Syria, like other minorities in the country, are concerned about Sharaa's centralization of power and reliance on Islamic jurisprudence in the transitional constitution that has been adopted by the interim government in Damascus.

Sharaa became the de facto Syrian president after his organization, Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS), toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad in December. HTS is the former affiliate of Al-Qaeda in Syria and promotes a genocidal, sectarian ideology against non-Sunni Muslims, in particular against Alawites.

Sharaa vowed to form an "inclusive transitional government that would reflect Syria's diversity," but has faced domestic and international criticism following recent mass sectarian killings of Alawites.

On 7 March, gunmen affiliated with the Syrian government descended on the coastal regions of Syria, massacring thousands of Alawite civilians. Gunmen affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and General Security went door to door in Alawite neighborhoods and villages, executing all fighting-aged men, as well as some women, the elderly, and children. The gunmen also looted and burned homes.

https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-pr ... federalism

Deadly clashes erupt between Druze fighters, Syrian security forces

Calls for sectarian violence flooded social media after a Druze cleric was accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad

News Desk

APR 29, 2025


(Photo credit: AP)

Clashes erupted overnight between Druze militants and armed factions affiliated with Syria’s security forces in the town of Jaramana in the Damascus outskirts, resulting in several deaths and injuries.


The fighting followed the circulation of a recording, attributed to a Druze cleric, insulting the Prophet Muhammad – sparking widespread anger and calls of incitement against minorities, including Druze and Alawites.

At least 12 people have been killed and others injured, including civilians, Druze fighters, and Syrian security members.

“Large military convoys gathered in a site near Jaramana city, to the flank of Al-Naseem neighborhood, and started shelling some neighborhoods, coinciding with the start of heavy gunfire,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

Druze religious leadership condemned the “unjustified” attack on Jaramana and said that Syrian authorities bear “full responsibility for the incident and for any further developments or worsening of the crisis.”

Druze cleric Youssef Jarbou said the “unacceptable” insult against the Prophet Muhammad does not represent the sect, and condemned calls on social media for violence against Druze as “an attempt to sow discord among members of Syrian society.”

Marwan Kiwan, the cleric accused of making the recording, denied responsibility.

“I categorically deny that the audio was made by me. I did not say that, and whoever made it is an evil man who wants to incite strife between components of the Syrian people,” he said.

Syria’s Interior Ministry said an initial probe confirmed that Kiwan was not responsible for the recording and urged people to abide by the law and not undermine security.

According to reports on Syrian telegram channels, there is speculation that the recording is a pretext and that the real reason behind the violence is a recent decision by the Suwayda Military Council to deploy forces to the borders of the mainly Druze city of Suwayda in southern Syria.

The council, a military body independent of the Damascus government, was formed in late February by former officers and local Druze fighters.

Clashes erupted between Druze fighters and security forces in Jaramana in early March, before a de-escalation saw security forces enter parts of the city.

Since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government collapsed in December, Syria has been plagued by a widespread Israeli occupation across large swathes of the country’s south.

Israel has claimed it wishes to support the Druze minority in Syria.

Minorities in Syria have faced violence and persecution at the hands of the new Syrian government. Last month, over 1,700 Alawites were killed in a series of sectarian massacres carried out by security forces.

https://thecradle.co/articles/deadly-cl ... ity-forces