Violence against Syria’s Alawite minority continues apace this weekend, with multiple incidents in the central city of Homs leaving at least two civilians killed and two others wounded.
The first incident took place Friday in the Zahra’a neighborhood, where an Alawite man in his 40s was shot in the chest by an unidentified gunman traveling by the residential area on a motorcycle. The man was taken to the hospital and died of his wounds.
Sunday, just west of the city in the village of Dahnah, gunmen stormed the home of an Alawite family, shooting them. A 17-year-old was reportedly slain, while his father and brother were wounded in the attack. The gunmen were believed to be from al-Mashahde, a village just south of there, and they are reportedly still at large.
That’s not unusual, as violent attacks on the Alawite minority have been a recurring theme in Syria since the massacre of a large number of them in the northwest of the country in March, and while promises were made for an investigation, crackdowns on the Alawites have become more or less official policy, with government-affiliated gunmen feeling free to attack them with impunity.
On Wednesday, government forces in the coastal city of Latakia kidnapped an Alawite 8th grader named Mohammad Qaid Haidar, the son of a well-known university professor. The kidnapping happened in broad daylight in full view of his classmates in what was assumed to be a safe neighborhood.
The incident led to major protesters in Latakia in the days that followed, with thousands of Alawites taking to the street and engaging in a general strike, demanding Haidar be returned. State media claimed an investigation was ongoing, but Haidar’s whereabouts are not known at this time.
While officials are trying to present such incidents as nothing to do with official policy, the regularity with which they keep happening makes less credible that these are all Islamist security forces acting unilaterally to attack religious minorities.
The Haidar incident seems to have gained particular attention, because the boy’s family was well-known and the neighborhood was not only considered safe but the school was right next to a security office, and no one interfered with the broad daylight kidnapping.
