For several days, confrontations of incredible violence have taken place in the Lattaquié region, the bastion of the Alawite minority of the fallen president Bashar al-Assad. The new government is pointed out.
The fall of the Syrian regime on December 8 did not finally dispel the ambient chaos. Since the beginning of March, violent clashes between the faithful of the fallen president Bashar al-Assad and the security forces have been putting the country on fire and blood. These extreme violence broke out in the Lattaquié region, in the northwest of the country, on the Syrian coast. Here is the Alaouite minority, a branch of Shiite Islam from which the ex-president came and which represents 9 % of the population of the country. Last Thursday, the faithful of Bashar al-Assad launched an attack on the interim security forces. The answer was of incredible brutality.
In total, no less than 1,103 people have lost their lives for four days, according to the latest assessment of the Human Rights Observatory (OSDH) published this Sunday. “830 Alawite civilians were killed in the coast regions and the mountains of Lattaquié by the security forces and affiliated groups,” says the NGO. Also, 273 members of the security forces and pro-Assad fighters died. The hope of peace now seems to be shattered in this region, after almost fourteen years of war and fifty-three years of reign of the Assad family.
The Syrian Interior Ministry recognizes “isolated abuses”
After an attack launched by the supporters of the former Syrian president, Ahmad al-Chareh, leader of the Sunni Radical HTS Islamist group and now acting president launched the response with the sending reinforcements to Lattaquié and Tartous. In this deleterious climate, the acting leader has already called the Alawite insurgents to go “before it was too late (…) you took it to all Syrians and committed an unforgivable fault. The response fell, and you could not bear it,” he launched.
For his part, Aron Lund – of the Century International Center for Reflection – assures AFP that these new violence testifies to the “fragility of the government”, composed of “radical jihadists who consider the Alawites as enemies of God”. Ahmad al-Chareh called this Sunday to “preserve national unity, civil peace as much as possible”. However, this discourse is not shared by all the factions that work under its orders. This is why, violence could continue.
In fact, the government in place now tracks down men loyal to the old regime to try to end it. Ahmad al-Chareh has already announced the formation of an “independent commission of inquiry” on “the abuses against civilians” in order to identify the officials and to “translate them”. The Syrian Interior Ministry recognizes “isolated abuses”, attributed to “crowds” who wanted to take revenge against the Alawites, held responsible for crimes under the Old Regime.
The UN claims the immediate stop of “civilians of civilians”
However, these could be crimes on a larger scale – perpetrated by militias close to power – notably at the sight of certain videos circulating on social networks, even if they remain relatively delicate to identify for the moment. The official Syrian agency Sana reports, for example, “violent clashes” in Taanita, a village in the mountain of the province of Tartous, where “many war criminals affiliated with the reversed regime have fled and groups of men loyal to Assad who protect them”.
French diplomacy has, called to “condemn” the “perpetrators”, while “condemning with the greatest firmness the abuses” against civilians. “Following a series of coordinated attacks that were said to have been launched by members of the former government and other local armed men, we receive extremely disturbing reports of whole families, including women, children who were killed,” the UN said this Sunday. “The killings of civilians must stop immediately,” abounds Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a statement.
11:51 – A position that “ridicules French diplomacy”, according to Bardella
The extreme right calls on the French government to put pressure on the Syrian interim power to protect minorities after the killings of Alawite civilians. “What challenges me is that everyone welcomed the fall of a dictator, whose act,” comments the president of the RN Jordan Bardella on France Inter this Monday. “France, through the voice of its Minister of Ertangers Affairs, Mr. Barrot, was the first to go to Damascus to bow down to the new Syrian regime, held by the heirs of Al-Qaeda, Daesh and a terrorist organization which has developed attacks against France,” he said. He accuses French diplomacy of prostrating himself “before the heirs of Daesh and Al-Qaeda in Syria (…) I find that it ridicules French diplomacy, that ridicules his function,” he concludes.
11:45 – François Fillon denounces “massacres (..) with the complicity” of the government
“I have just spoken on the phone with the superior mother of the Carmélite convent of Maaloula in Syria. She calls France to rescue before the massacres of Alawite civilians and Christians in progress in Syria. These massacres are perpetrated by jihadist factions which act with the complicity of the new Syrian power”, reacts the ex-Prime Minister François Fillon about X about last having caused the death of more than 800 alaouites.
“In the city of Banya more than a thousand people, including women and children have been murdered. I appeal to the President of the Republic to act on the Syrian government who cannot take advantage of his relations with France while cynically lets do what could become an operation of systematic elimination of the Alawite and Christian populations,” he continues.