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Clashes between Syrian security services and fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime erupted on Wednesday, kicking off five days of still-ongoing fighting which has killed more than 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, according to a war monitor.
The clashes, some of the deadliest in the country since the beginning of its civil war in 2011, were the biggest challenge Syria’s new authorities faced since taking power in December.
Civilians, mainly from the minority Islamic Alawite sect, faced a wave of revenge killings from Syrian government forces and Assad loyalists.
How did the violence start and who was behind the killing of civilians?
How did the clashes start?
On 8 December 2024, rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled over Syria for 53 years. HTS then assumed power, forming a transitional government led by the group’s former leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously went by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Sharaa assured the country, as its new president, that the rights of religious minorities, including those from the Alawite sect from which the Assad family hailed, would be respected under the new government. Since taking power, however, incidences of revenge killings have happened sporadically in Alawite villages, which the Syrian government called “individual cases” and promised to investigate. Syrian security forces also faced continual attacks by fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime.
Nonetheless, the situation in north-west Syria, and specifically the coastal provinces that were Assad’s former stronghold, remained mostly calm until last week.
On Wednesday, Syrian security forces and checkpoints were attacked simultaneously across Syria’s coast by Assad regime loyalists. Syria’s ministry of defence said that the attacks were “coordinated and premediated”, while an adviser to the minister of foreign affairs said the attack involved up to 4,000 Assad loyalists.
A former Assad security officer, Miqdad Fatiha, is thought to be playing a leading role in the operation.
Chaos and confusion reigned for a few hours while security forces, caught by surprise by the attack, were overwhelmed and killed en masse. Assad regime loyalists began firing at cars randomly, attacking civilians and burning public buildings such as police stations.
Syria’s authorities issued a call for reinforcements and thousands of fighters from across the country poured into the coastal provinces. Civilians, many of whom were armed, also joined the military convoys.
How did the killings start?
Security forces, buoyed by reinforcements, began to fight Assad regime loyalists and push them back from villages in Syria’s coast. The loyalists retreated into the countryside, burning state property and killing as they went.
A resident of the Qusour neighbourhood of Baniyas in the Latakia countryside described how Assad loyalists fled from Jableh to the area on Thursday night. “They hid in the hospital behind my house and started shooting at public security, some of them went first to the police station and burned it,” the resident said, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation.
As Syrian government forces and armed civilians began to move into Alawite villages in north-west Syria, videos of abuses began to surface. Civilians began to report wholesale killings by security forces, in accounts corroborated by rights monitoring groups.
The resident from Qusour described how a faction consisting of Chechen foreign fighters came to their neighbourhood after battling Assad loyalists on Thursday and entered their home, threatening to burn it down unless they gave them their car keys and mobile phone. On Friday, a group of Syrian fighters entered their building and rounded up the Alawite men in the building, taking them to the roof and shooting them.
“They took a 16-year-old boy, he had a nervous breakdown, telling them not to kill him. They didn’t say anything, they just took him and killed him,” said a second resident from Baniyas. Other residents of coastal villages reported knowing dozens of people who were killed.
Videos seen by the Guardian showed fighters wearing fatigues executing unarmed people at point-blank range, and dozens of corpses in civilian clothing piled on top of each other in the village of Mukhtariya in Latakia.
Who is responsible for the killings?
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), which employs exhaustive documentation standards and is considered independent: Assad regime loyalists killed 383 people, including 211 civilians and 172 Syrian security forces, while Syrian security forces killed 396 people, which includes civilians and disarmed fighters. Killing disarmed fighters is against international humanitarian law. The statistics do not account for the number of Assad regime loyalists killed.
The vast majority of unlawful killings of civilians and prisoners by Syrian security forces were committed by two specific factions, as well as individuals who joined military convoys, according to the SNHR.
Specifically, the two factions responsible for the majority of the killings of civilians were the Abu Amsha and Hamzat divisions. Both are rebel groups previously affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Both factions and their leaders are under US sanctions for alleged serious human rights abuses including rape and torture.
Both factions are among the disparate groups that the new Syrian government is trying to incorporate into its national army. They are nominally under the auspices of the new state, with Abu Amsha appointed head of Hama province’s military brigade. However, in reality the state exercises limited control over them.
According to the founder of SNHR, Fadel Abdulghany, these factions would commit abuses in villages until HTS security forces arrived, upon which they would move to the neighbouring town until they were driven out once again. At least four residents of villages in Latakia described a similar process of factions evading HTS security forces.
What happens now?
In a speech on Sunday, Sharaa vowed to hunt down the Assad regime loyalists who sparked the violence and to hold those who killed civilians to account.
“We will hold accountable, with full decisiveness, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians, mistreats civilians, exceeds the state’s authority or exploits power for personal gain. No one will be above the law,” Sharaa said.
He announced the formation of a committee to issue a report on the clashes and the ensuing violence in north-west Syria, as well as a committee to address the Alawite community’s concerns.
Holding perpetrators to account and ensuring real transitional justice in war-torn Syria is seen as key to the country’s recovery from its 14-year civil war, and to the success of the new government.
