Atrocities Against Alawites

Atrocities have been committed against Syria’s Alawite minority over the past few days by members of the interim Syrian administration and their supporters, both domestic and foreign, killing at least 750 civilians according to the UK-based “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” citing their own local sources. The real death toll is likely a lot higher though since the radical Islamic perpetrators exploited a rebellion by Alawite militias to collective punish their co-religionists who they consider to be apostates.

The interim Syrian administration is led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who used to be part of Al Qaeda and even had a $10 million bounty on his head from the US. His Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist group ultimately came to control Syria after the lightning-fast collapse of the Assad Government late last year. That development was attributable to a combination of sanctions, incorrigible corruption, wasted opportunities for peace, and even speculative treason.

Turkiye backed HTS as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s instrumentalization of radical Islamic forces in the region and therefore came to be Syria’s hegemon upon installing its proxy into power. He’s known to be friendly towards the Muslim Brotherhood and was earlier accused of supporting ISIS during that group’s short-lived self-declared caliphate. This context accounts for the interim authorities’ radical Islamic views and explains why they might have even felt emboldened by Turkiye to kill minorities.

Sharaa and his supporters are Sunni Arab supremacists who consider the Kurds, the Druze, and the Alawites, not to mention the small Christian communities scattered throughout Syria, to be second-class citizens at best and future targets of genocide at worst. He himself sought to allay international concerns about his administration by rebranding as a democratic revolutionary after seizing power, helped to a large degree by Western media assistance, but that was now revealed to have been a charade.

Members of his administration and their supporters, including the foreign fighters that have long been part of HTS, went house-to-house killing entire Alawite families and any Sunnis who sheltered them. They even expanded their ethnic cleansing campaign into the mountains beyond the coastal cities where the Alawite militias unsuccessfully attempted their rebellion. Only those locals who sought shelter in Russia’s nearby Khmeimim Air Base are truly safe since everyone else still remains a target of genocide.

Even though Sharaa launched a probe to investigate these killings and bring about accountability, this is widely considered to be a ploy in response to international pressure since few really believe that he’d risk a much more dangerous rebellion by punishing his own supporters. Furthermore, he might have only done this after being pressured by his Turkish patron, whose international reputation is now tarnished by association with what just unfolded and is actually still happening within its new “sphere of influence”.

After all, Turkiye is now Syria’s hegemon after its HTS proxies were installed into power less than three months ago, so it ultimately bears some responsibility for this ethnic cleansing campaign that’s quickly taking on genocidal proportions. One of the reasons why Turkiye turned a blind eye to this at best and might have even secretly encouraged it at worst could be due to the new security dilemma in Syria with Iran after Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned late last month about the latter’s alleged plans there.

He said that “If you try to create instability in another country by supporting a certain group, then another country may do the same to you in return”, which was in response to the scenario of Iran backing the Kurdish-led “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) but could also apply in retrospect to Alawite militias. Some members of these groups are speculated to have been relatively high-ranking members of the now-dissolved Syrian Arab Army during the Assad era and might thus have long-standing ties to Iran.

To be clear, even if that speculation is proven true, it wouldn’t in any way justify collectively punishing the Alawites through ethnic cleansing and genocide. The point in referencing this speculation is only to place Turkiye’s role in these ongoing atrocities into context since Ankara might have believed that Iran was instrumentalizing Alawite militias as part of an incipient proxy war against Sharaa’s Syria. If that was the case, then it follows that Turkiye could have signaled to its proxies to go wild to” thwart this threat”.

That wouldn’t be unprecedented either since some experts believe that the World War I-era Armenian Genocide was carried out the same way and for the same reasons, namely by supporters of the authorities who felt emboldened to collectively punish all Armenians due to some having rebelled. Turkiye denies the characterization of those killings as genocide and claims that the Ottomans never ordered them, but critics consider those claims to be implausible and still hold it responsible.

Likewise, contemporary critics hold Turkiye responsible for the similar atrocities against the Alawites even though it’s premature to conclude that this is a genocide in terms of scale and no evidence has yet to emerge proving that Turkiye ordered these killings. Nevertheless, the comparison between what Russia and most of the West consider to be the Armenian Genocide and the latest atrocities against the Alawites explains why Russia and the US organized a closed-door UNSC meeting about this on Monday.

Russia’s ties with Turkiye remain cordial but complex due to Ankara’s support of Kiev, including military aid, while the US’ ties with Turkiye are also complex but for different reasons. Russia is negotiating with the interim Syrian authorities to retain its air and naval bases while Trump reportedly planned to withdraw US forces from SDF-controlled Northeastern Syria. While it’s unclear what effect the latest atrocities might have on Russia’s plans, the US might reconsider its own in order to protect the Kurds.

Observers should also remember that Israel stormed into Southwestern Syria after Assad’s downfall and pledged to protect the Druze, so it’s hypothetically possible that each of them might be responsible – whether informally or officially – for protecting minorities in their “sphere of influence”. In order to avoid any misunderstandings, Russia hasn’t made any statement of intent about its desire to protect the Alawites outside of its air base nor made any move suggesting that it’ll challenge the interim authorities.

It's only the US and Israel that continue to illegally occupy Northeastern and Southwestern Syria respectively in defiance of two consecutive Syrian governments, but the point being made is that Russia is positioned to assume such responsibilities if the situation keeps deteriorating. In that case, however, it’s much more likely that the UNSC might request the deployment of Arab League-led peacekeepers to Syria for dividing those three geographically distinct minorities from the interim Syrian authorities.

Even that scenario can’t be taken for granted, and it would leave the Christian communities scattered throughout Syria defenseless unless believers flee to one of these three proposed refuges elsewhere in the country, but it also can’t be completely ruled out either considering the Russian-US rapprochement. Trump’s pragmatic policy towards the Ukrainian Conflict has led to a thaw in their ties that even saw them joining forces at the UN late last month so they might soon expand their cooperation to Syria.

That could see them at least flirting with the possibility of authorizing Arab League-led peacekeepers there if the atrocities don’t end and there’s an urgent need to protect all minorities. The interim Syrian authorities wouldn’t resist otherwise they’d expose themselves as rogues, while Turkiye probably wouldn’t meaningfully oppose this either for the same reason, though it’ll likely complain very loudly due to the Arab League encroaching on Erdogan’s envisaged “sphere of influence” in Syria.

Looking forward, the latest atrocities against the Alawites will either herald the beginning of more ethnic cleansings against other minorities if the international community doesn’t soon act to prevent this or they’ll herald the beginning of Syria’s so-called “Balkanization” on the “Responsibility to Protect” pretext. Both outcomes are unfavorable but one of them might be inevitable since it’s difficult to imagine Syria stabilizing and unifying after these killings. The world is also unlikely to forget what it just witnessed.