Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) declared their military operation against the Alawites over on Monday morning, but the execution of Alawite civilians has not halted. The number of civilians executed before Monday has also been rising further as more are counted.
At least 17 Alawite civilians have been killed along the northwestern coast since Monday, with the largest confirmed incident reported Monday night in Jableh. A witness says militia members aligned with the government entered the Alawite neighborhood, took 10 men from their homes, and shot them in the streets.
The witness said some of the militia members appeared to be Chechen, which is in keeping with reports that HTS has absorbed a lot of foreign Sunni Islamists into the security forces and their associated militias. They have been reported by locals as heavily involved in the massacres of Alawites from the beginning. At least five more civilians, possibly as many as 21, were executed in a village just south of Baniyas, and their bodies left on the highway outside of town.
It may or may not be directly related to the ongoing purge of Alawites, but it was also reported that former diplomat Noureddine al-Labbad and his brother were killed by gunmen in the southern town of al-Sanamayn. This area is far outside the field of the mass executions.
Labbad was also an Alawite, and loosely tied to the former Assad government, which is presumably why he was targeted. Yet Labbad had defected from the Assad government way back in 2013, and had since been serving as a representative to the political council of Syrian rebels overseas. He had just returned to Syria from France two weeks prior to his death.
Though Tartus and Latakia Governorates were spared the worst of the violence during the protracted Syrian Civil War that left the HTS is charge, the presence of a large number of Alawites, and the sense they were Assad loyalists, has fueled a lot of resentment, and made them a main target for post-Assad revenge killings.
The massacres started on Thursday, after a group of Alawite militias attacked an HTS checkpoint near Jableh, starting some major battles. In addition to the hundreds of people on both sides killed in the battle, a huge number of civilians were summarily executed, overwhelmingly Alawites in Tartus and Latakia Governorates, but with some spillover into the neighboring Homs and Hama Governorates.
The death toll from Thursday to Monday is still being counted, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights putting the present documented figure at 1,383 killed. The Grayzone spoke to aid agencies in the area who told them the actual toll was much higher. They said over 4,000 civilians were killed, thousands more wounded, and around 200,000 people have been internally displaced by the violence.
Over 10,000 Alawites had already reportedly fled into neighboring Lebanon as of Sunday, and more have continued to head into northern Lebanon, despite the difficulty of crossing in an area where no official border crossings exist anymore.
Alawites make up roughly 10% of Syria’s population, meaning between 2 and 3 million people. Most of them live in the northwest. They were founded in the 9th century by Ibn Nusayr as an offshoot from the Shi’ite tradition, and the perception of them as effectively Shi’ites also makes them a target for Sunni Islamist groups.
USA meddling in other countries = death.
The dead are actually the lucky ones in those countries we meddle in.
Ending the mass torture and executions of entire families is not "death". Russians and Iranians supporting the unpopular and barbaric regime – which tortured to death countless people (maybe 150,000) is death. Horrible, brutal, cruel death.
Removing these barbaric criminals is good, no matter how it happened.
Don’t know where you get your figures from. Feel free to cite sources.
That being said, the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham government has already murdered several thousands… including mass beheadings and yes torture. And yes, whole families. Where in your claimed ending of “the mass torture and executions”?
I guess you would be in favor of these criminals being stopped. perhaps by supporting another violent faction, right? Or perhaps not.
If you, and others like you are enthusiastic about funding violent thugs of any sort you cross my red line when you use political power to extort from me to support such.
As far US interference in places in the Middle East, North Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America not resulting in death? Tell that to the dead.
Alawite rebellion? Syria’s uprising sparks fears of a full-scale war.
The clashes in question erupted on March 6 in the provinces of Latakia, Tartus, and Homs. The Syrian Ministry of Health reported that on the evening of March 6, six hospitals in rural areas of Latakia and Tartus were attacked by Assad supporters, resulting in multiple casualties.
One of the epicenters of the fighting was the city of Jableh, located on the Mediterranean coast, south of Latakia. This region has traditionally been considered a stronghold of the Alawite people, who make up approximately 10-15% of Syria’s total population. The Alawites, to whom the Assad family belongs, have long been the backbone of the previous regime.
Unrest in the region flared up after the security forces of the new government attempted to carry out a raid in a village near Jableh, where arms depots allegedly set up by opponents of the new regime were located.
In response, protesters took to the streets of Jableh, Khmeimim, Latakia, Tartus, Homs, and other cities, attacking police stations and military facilities, seizing weapons stored there. According to various sources, some of the rebel leaders are former Syrian army generals from Assad’s time. These same generals had reportedly refused to support Assad during his ouster.
The rebels have even announced the formation of the "Military Council for the Liberation of Syria" under the leadership of former Assad-era General Ghiath al-Dala. They have managed to take control of several areas in Tartus and Khmeimim, and there have been calls for the creation of a "Latakian Republic."
Meanwhile, tensions are also rising in southern Syria, home to the Druze community, which enjoys Israeli support, and in the north, controlled by U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. Reports from Druze-populated areas indicate that local self-defense forces are being formed to maintain their region’s autonomy.
Israel has already signaled its readiness to assist the Druze. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accused Syria’s new authorities of committing terror against national and religious minorities and assured that Israel would not abandon the Druze.
Moreover, a key question looms over Russia’s military presence in Syria. While Moscow has provided sanctuary to Alawites, thereby hindering the Syrian regime’s ability to purge them, this has created tensions with the ruling authorities. An attack on the Russian base—whether provoked or spontaneous—cannot be ruled out. Any such assault would prompt a military response from Russian forces, which would mean direct Russian involvement in the Syrian conflict.
Interestingly, this could actually align with Moscow’s strategic interests, as it would justify Russia’s continued military presence in Syria under the pretext of protecting civilians and preventing further conflict escalation. In this narrative, Russia would position itself as a peacekeeping force in Syria.
Another key player in this unfolding crisis is Iran. Iran is unlikely to limit itself to merely orchestrating the opposition's movements—it will actively supply weapons, advisers, and intelligence support to anti-regime forces. And it is highly likely that Iran’s actions will be coordinated with Russia.
Read more here: https://news.az/news/-alawite-rebellion-syrias-uprising-sparks-fears-of-a-full-scale-war
Thank you for this honest assessment of what is happening and why, unlike our mainstream media. Hopefully Trump and Putin, negotiating about Ukraine and ending that unnecessary war, will also include a fair way of protecting the innocent in Syria, and a fair peaceful relation between Israel and Iran
Divide and conquer….?!….!
Killing Alawites? What about Israel killing Palestinians? Where'd that story go?
HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly al-Jolani) is probably not even a Syrian. Some reports say he is a Saudi. He looks like a Saudi to me.
Ahmad al-Sharaa, has been the CIA’s chosen survivor of a targeted assassination program in Idlib province for the last few years. That is because he has been a CIA operative ever since he was imprisoned in Iraq during the insurgency 20 years ago. There have been many small targeted mysterious air strikes by the US in Idlib over the years to take out specific rebel leaders.
These new targeted assassinations, the 4th in one month, are nothing new. Any fellow jihadists leader that knows that al-Jolani is a CIA agent is being targeted. The CIA killed four more jihadis in Idlib in the last Month as reported by (see link)… https://news.antiwar.com/2025/03/02/us-reports-drone-strike-in-syrias-idlib-killed-senior-al-qaeda-leader/
Just last August the US killed Abu-Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, who was described as a “senior leader” of Hurras al-Din. (see link)…
http://Antiwar.com
It is not hard to figure this out. Just ask yourself, why wasn’t al-Jolani targeted all of these years? Would the US really invest $ billions to bring to power in Syria someone that they were not sure of?
Ahmad al-Sharaa had been groomed and selected all of these years by the CIA, with all of his competition eliminated with these air strikes in Idlib. Al-Qaeda has been totally co-opted by the CIA for many years. Any local leader of competing groups to HTS in Idlib that might have gotten suspicious to this CIA selection process were themselves eliminated, all in the same manner.
So when Jake Sullivan told Hillary Clinton in an email back in 2013, «al-Qaeda is on our side», this is what he was talking about.
An eruption of violence and the misinformation crisis in Syria.