by Seth J. Frantzman
Massacre reports put pressure on Syria’s new leadership to respond.
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Reports of massacres of civilians in Syria’s Latakia are a major test for the new government of Syria. Since the fall of the Assad regime, the new authorities have sought to try to balance the needs of numerous Syrians from different regions and groups.
The group that came to power on December 8, 2024, after the Assad regime fell, was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has its roots in extremist groups that opposed the Assad regime. Since December, there have been concerns that HTS might persecute minorities. However, the leader of HTS, Ahmad al-Sharaa, moved quickly to make it seem Damascus had a new face.
The clashes that began in Latakia on March 6 have been brewing for months. Depending on the source, the reports say that groups of insurgents with ties to the old regime attacked the security forces of the new Damascus government.
#Breaking: It is happening in the coastal regions of #Syria. Terrorists of the new #Syrian Jihadist regime are looting shops owned by religious and ethnic minorities, similar to what happened in #Manbij, #Afrin, and other Kurdish cities in #Syria that were occupied by the… pic.twitter.com/dXBdpx2SsL
— Babak Taghvaee - The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) March 8, 2025
Unclear reports from Syria
The result was the deaths of dozens of members of the security forces. Faced with this growing opposition, the government appears to have unleashed numerous armed men on Latakia without much control over their behavior. This led armed groups to enter Latakia, claiming to seek revenge and supposedly conducting security sweeps. In reality, it seems that on March 7, dozens of people, perhaps hundreds, were murdered. The victims are mostly members of the Alawite minority. The Assad family is a member of the same group.
As with any conflict where there are multiple sides, the reports are always going to be unclear. What is clear is that Alawites and others fear that a massacre is taking place in areas around Tartous and other cities and towns. Video shows men being murdered in the streets, run over, forced to crawl on the ground; and they show groups of bodies dumped in places.
Backers of the Damascus generally say that these killings are an unfortunate outcome of some people who sought revenge and that they are a kind of collateral damage of “security” operations. They argue that the Assad regime was brutal and that, by extension, responses to Assad loyalists killing members of the new security forces will result in these extremes.
The reality is that the government in Damascus is facing its first major test. It has faced many smaller tests already, such as finding a way to work with the Druze minority in southern Syria, managing relations with Turkish-backed proxies called the SNA, or managing talks with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Latakia was always going to be complex because there are so many people among the Syrian rebel factions and SNA that have wanted revenge for the years of Assad's rule. They see the Alawite minority as a place to take out their vengeance. Voices excuse this behavior by arguing that we should focus on the larger crimes of Assad or that there is too much attention given to minorities in Syria. These folk argue that it is “disinformation” to claim that there is now a campaign of pogroms targeting Alawites.
Time will tell which is the case. For now, the government in Damascus will need to assure international partners that the reports of massacres will be addressed. It will also need to be transparent. If it ends up relying on gangs and extremisms to enforce its rule in Latakia, then it will become little better than the former regime.
Seth J. Frantzman
Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-845219
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