A new Department of National Intelligence (DNI) threat assessment has been released. Such assessments are required annually under the Intelligence Authorization Act in 2021. Though most of the assessment centers on Russia and China, and is largely unchanged from last year, a small section on Syria shows covers quite a bit of recent news.
It reports on the rise of Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who seized power back in December, noting HTS was historically tied to al-Qaeda. While mentioning their talk of unity in Syria, they note that they also risk extending the period of instability in the country.
The most noteworthy part is this month’s massacre of Alawite and Christian civilians in northwestern Syria, as the assessment notes that the HTS-led government forces and other jihadist groups working with them engaged in “violence and extrajudicial killings” in the northwest. They put the death toll at “over 1,000” in the assessment, but most reports indicate it at well over 1,500, potentially by quite a bit, as the number continues to rise.
The violence against the Alawites and Christians reflects the Sunni Islamist government’s general hostility toward them, stemming in part from former President Assad and his family being Alawites. The massacres and other violence have led many Alawites to flee to northern Lebanon, and the remaining ones are extremely concerned about what their future holds.
Exactly how many Christians were caught up in the massacre is still unclear, as is why they ended up targeted in the first place. Both are religious minorities living in the same region, however, and some Islamists at times appear to conflate the two, colloquially referring to the Alawites as “Christians.”
Alawites are a somewhat secretive off-shoot of Shia Islam, not Christians, but the general lack of understanding of what they believe may be leading some groups to lump the two minorities together, at least for the sake of hostility. Alawite rituals also have some things in common with Christian rituals, which may add to the sense that they’re both roughly the same sort of outsiders.
During the Ottoman era, both Alawites and Christians at times faced persecution as religious minorities, and living in close proximity they likely did cooperate on some level for their own protection.
Though the DNI assessment confirming that the HTS government forces engaged in the massacres surprises no one, because that’s what all the media reports have said from the beginning. It is, however, noteworthy that the US government is acknowledging that fact, as previously they’ve been open to working with the HTS, going so far as to offer them sanction relief (albeit minor) in return for certain concessions.
It may also be worth noting that the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was strongly opposed to arming and supporting HTS back when she was in Congress (the group was known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham at the time).
Gabbard (then D – HI) introduced a bipartisan bill called the Stop Arming Terrorists Act (SATA) in 2017 which aimed to forbid the US government from arming HTS, as well as other al-Qaeda factions and ISIS. There was a Senate version of SATA introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R – KY). Neither version ever came to the floor for a vote, and indeed the Senate version never even got a second co-sponsor beyond Sen. Paul.
Such bills were rather controversial at the time for the very idea of not arming al-Qaeda factions inside Syria, as the CIA was doing exactly that. Gabbard’s opposition to arming the HTS at the time may well be informing the DNI’s willingness to admit what the HTS is doing now, even though doing so is potentially embarrassing for the rest of the intelligence community, since US provided arms and intelligence played at least a partial role in HTS seizing power in Syria.
