wThe armed chicken man entered Hayan's house last Friday, but he thought he would be killed before him like his neighbor. The militants dragged him outside, throw him to the ground and start shooting him over his head, making him unable to hear the humiliation as he is a member of the country's minority Islamic Alawian denomination.
Hayan was lucky – they simply chose to scare him not to kill him – but by the time the rampage finally ended, 25 inhabitants of the town of Alawite town in northwestern Syria had died. They included a 90-year-old local religious figure who killed him after extremists forced him to kill his son.
Such a massacre has been a hallmark of Syria's 14-year civil war, but last week's Salhab violence took place during the country's most deadly days since the start of the war. In addition to the high death toll, the marking of these killings as different and a dark precursor to the country's future — is that many are nominally part of the new Syrian army created by the country's new president.
The massacre questioned the challenge of Syrian government's ability to control its ranks and suppressing the patchwork of militias that currently control the country.
The battle began when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ousted fighter planes launched a coordinated attack on Syrian government forces across the country on March 6, urging the government to seek help. Thousands of armed individuals and several rebel groups answered the phone. The furious militia and crowds carried out a wave of revenge attacks on members of the Syrian Alawait community, the same sect that Assad welcomed, but most had nothing to do with the previous regime. Massacres continued in most Alawian villages.
In total, over 1,000 people died during the four days of the battle, including 745 civilians, many of whom were killed in revenge attacks targeting the sect. Additionally, Assad's loyalists killed 211 members of Syrian security forces and 228 civilians.
Experts pointed to two factions, the Sultansleimanshah brigade and Hamzat division, as they were responsible for most of the killings of civilians and unarmed prisoners during the explosion of violence on Syrian coast last week. Both rebels previously partnered with the Turkish-backed Syrian army. The faction and its leaders are under US sanctions for alleged serious human rights abuses, including rape and torture.
Abu Amsha said in a post Regarding X, whose department has stuck to an order from the Syrian Ministry of Defense and said the news of his participation in the massacre was “propaganda.” He added that all members of his faction are “subject to law and accountability.”
“The majority of the violations were carried out by Abu Amsha [faction] and hamzat. Many residents were asking the government's security forces to protect them from those factions,” said Fadel Abdulghany, founder of the Syrian Network of Human Rights (SNHR).
Along with dozens of other armed groups, the two factions have recently been merged into Syrian new forces and are led by the now-decomposed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).
HTS, the leader of the rebel coalition that expelled Assad's regime on December 8, announced that it would disband all armed factions in the country, including itself, and be integrated into the new Syrian army.
But in reality, the government has struggled to consolidate military factions and limit controls that restrict them.
“Currently, the integration of SNA factions into the Ministry of Defense appears to have only happened on a symbolic level,” said Alexander McKeever, researcher and author of the Northern Syria weekly newsletter. “The HTS tools are limited in terms of cracking because of weak institutional relationships,” he added.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has promised that all those who killed or abused civilians on Syrian coasts last week will be held accountable, even if they are allies of the HTS.
“We are fully deterministic and accountable to anyone who engages in the bloodshed of civilians, abuses civilians, surpasses state authority, or exploits power for personal gain. No one will surpass the law,” Shara said.
It is unclear whether Sharaa can actually be held responsible for some of the exact same factions who helped him lead him to power, fearing alienating militias that could even induce instability or conflict in Syria. If he cannot punish the militia for slaughtering civilians, he alienates many Syrian citizens. He will remind you of a person in the regime who slaughter his fellow countrymen with immunity.
The civilian massacre on Syrian coast has suspended the international community about lifting sanctions. Syria has been under US sanctions since 1979, and was strengthened in 2011 after the Assad regime's brutal crackdown on protesters.
New Syrian authorities have lifted one of the top priorities of sanctions, supporting the economy of the disease and allowing them to build a functional state with professional military forces.
The murder of Alawian civilians has deeply hampered evangelical members of the Trump White House, who viewed the protection of Syrian religious minorities as an important benchmark for the new government.
“They only have one agenda on Syria, and that's Christians. They don't care if the rest of the country goes to hell or not. And they were furious about what happened last week,” said Kamal Alam, a senior non-resident fellow at Atlantic Council, who advised evangelical members of the Syrian Trump team and said they would support Christians in the Levant.
After last week's murder, Aram added that these members of the Trump administration have tried to add protections to their portfolio not just Syrian Christians. This could blunt the efforts of the people in Congress who have been trying to lift our sanctions.
The damage has already been done for many members of Syria's Arawait community. Nearly 11,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon since the coastal violence, according to the United Nations.
“The streets are empty. We don't dare to go outside. All of us here can't sleep from the fear that we'll be killed in bed,” Hayan said.
