A violent incident occurred recently when militants belonging to Syria’s dominant Islamist faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham carried out a brutal and merciless killing spree. These militants took pleasure in inflicting harm by beating, torturing, and executing defenseless civilians living in Alawite communities along the western coast of the country.
More than 1,000 people have reportedly been slaughtered as HTS militants filmed themselves subjecting unarmed civilians to heinous treatment.
Some were forced to crawl besides the bloodied corpses of their neighbours as they were battered by branches and sticks.
In a horrifying display of cruelty, some individuals were forcibly removed from their residences and mercilessly shot at close range with automatic weapons, while the Islamist perpetrators looked on, deriving amusement as bullets pierced their victims’ bodies.
The HTS government in Damascus justified these assaults in the Latakia region on Syria’s western coast by alleging that they were in response to attacks by pro-Assad loyalist factions on security checkpoints that occurred on March 6.
But a mountain of evidence – most of it provided by HTS militants themselves – now shows that the bulk of the violence was meted out against unarmed and non-resistant civilians.
In many of the clips, HTS militants filmed themselves waving to the camera, their faces clearly visible.
When HTS seized power in Syria with a lightning coup that deposed former president Bashar al-Assad in December, leader Ahmed al-Sharaa affirmed that Syria’s diverse religious and ethnic minorities would be safe from persecution and violence.
It was a bold claim from a man whose group came into existence as the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda and ruled Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib according to strict Sharia law, violently suppressing any dissent.
Though many world leaders, including from Western democratic states, rejoiced the ousting of Assad and softened their stance on HTS, regional players – including Syria’s Kurdish-led autonomous region of Rojava – warned that Sharaa and HTS were wolves in sheep’s clothing.
HTS, a Sunni Islamist group, was first formed in 2012 under the name Jabhat al-Nusra and was the Syrian wing of the Islamic State of Iraq – then a branch of Al-Qaeda.
In 2017, the group underwent a rebrand, cutting ties with Al-Qaeda and changing its name to HTS as leader Ahmed al-Sharaa sought to moderate his stance to gain legitimacy.
Since seizing power in December 2024, HTS has ruled from Damascus, consolidating their hold over most of western and parts of central Syria.
But huge swathes of the country remain out of their control.
Almost all the land northeast of the Euphrates River that cuts through the heart of Syria is part of Rojava – officially the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) – an autonomous region home to Syria’s Kurdish population.
Parts of the north and northwest are controlled primarily by Syrian National Army (SNA) – a Turkish-backed militia that is waging war against Rojava.
Across Syria’s east and in its vast deserts, ISIS cells remain active, and parts of the south are home to the Druze Arab religious group.
Meanwhile, on the west coast, pro-Assad groups are still trying to cling to power in Alawite-majority communities around Latakia.
The Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, and it once formed the core constituency of Assad’s government in the Sunni-majority country.
One militant group, the Coastal Shield Brigade, is formed of remnants of Assad’s web of military and intelligence branches who fled their posts as HTS swept to power last year before consolidating their strength in Latakia.
They have vowed to strike back at HTS and have refused to lay down their arms, fearing brutal reprisals should they surrender.
But these militias are now encircled by Syria’s new government forces, their backs against the Mediterranean Sea.
As Alawite militias clashed with HTS fighters late last week, other members of HTS mercilessly rampaged through Alawite territories, conducting summary executions, maiming and tormenting civilian populations.
Skin-crawling footage appeared to show civilians being shot and burned to death as pictures of mass graves circulated on social media.
Witnesses revealed how women were reportedly told to ‘walk naked’ before being shot dead amid horrifying scenes in Syria, as civilians who narrowly escaped the reprisals told reporters of their experiences.
The reprehensible actions are likely to damage HTS leader Sharaa’s efforts to position the former jihadist group as a legitimate ruling authority and a willing partner in the eyes of the international community.
Samir Haidar, 67, said two of his brothers and his nephew were killed by ‘armed groups’ that entered people’s homes in the town of Baniyas, around 25 kilometres south of Latakia.
Though an Alawite himself, Haidar belonged to the leftist opposition under Assad’s rule and was imprisoned for more than a decade.
He said he began hearing explosions and gunfire on Friday morning with the arrival of forces deployed to the city, adding that ‘they entered the building and killed my only neighbour.’
He managed to escape with his wife and two children to a Sunni neighbourhood, but said: ‘If I had been five minutes late, I would have been killed.’
Since coming to power, Sharaa has lobbied the United States and Europe to lift sanctions to pave the way for economic recovery to pull millions of Syrians out of poverty and make the country viable again.
But Washington and Europe are concerned that lifting sanctions before Syria transitions into an inclusive political system could pave the way for another chapter of autocratic rule.
Sharaa appealed to Syrians and the international community in an address over the weekend, calling for accountability for anyone who harms civilians and and for ‘national unity (and) civil peace’ to be preserved.’
‘God willing, we will be able to live together in this country,’ he said, adding that the new authorities would not ‘allow any foreign powers or domestic parties to drag (Syria) into chaos or civil war’.
He blamed remnants of the former Assad government and unspecified foreign parties supporting them for the outbreak of violence, and also declared he had formed a committee composed mostly of judges to investigate the violence.
But Sharaa declined to acknowledge the mounting body of evidence showing his own fighters massacring civilians.
After taking Damascus in December, Sharaa scrapped Syria’s constitution and formed a ‘transitional government’ dominated by his loyalists – with himself as interim president.
He also ordered all armed groups to disarm and be absorbed into a centralised military under HTS control.
In March, the transitional government is set to end, and Sharaa has said Syria would hold elections to construct a new leading body representative of Syria’s diverse religious and ethnic populations.
But many remain sceptical that HTS has any intention of relinquishing power – none more so than the Kurdish-led autonomous administration of north and east Syria (AANES) in Rojava.
The people of Rojava have already built a secular political system centred around grassroots democracy, where every ethnic and religious group has a say – an approach completely at odds with HTS’ vision of an Islamic state.
Meanwhile, the US – which partnered with Rojava’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to defeat the Islamic State in Syria throughout the 2010s – has affirmed its commitment to upholding the rights of Syria’s minority groups.
In a statement issued Sunday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Syrian authorities to ‘hold the perpetrators of these massacres’ accountable, adding that Washington ‘stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities.’
