Syria’s new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.
Assad fled Syria after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell on December 8, ending his clan’s five-decade rule and more than 13 years of civil war.
Syria’s new leaders from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) face the monumental task of safeguarding the multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic country from further collapse.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim jihadist group, HTS has moderated its rhetoric and vowed to ensure protection for minorities, including the Alawite community which Assad hails from.
With 500,000 dead in the war — sparked by Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests — and more than 100,000 missing, the new authorities have also pledged justice for the victims of abuses under the deposed ruler.
On Thursday, state news agency SANA said security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad militias in the western province of Tartus, “neutralising a certain number” of armed men.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, three gunmen linked with Assad’s government were killed in the operation.
It comes a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes in the same province when forces tried to arrest an Assad-era officer, according to the Observatory.
The Britain-based monitor said the wanted man, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, “held the position of director of the military justice department and field court chief” at the notorious Saydnaya prison complex.
It said he had “issued death sentences and arbitrary judgements against thousands of prisoners”.
Hate or revenge
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.
During the offensive that precipitated Assad’s ousting, rebels flung open the doors of prisons and detention centres around the country, letting out thousands of people.
In central Damascus, relatives of some of the missing have hung up posters of their loved ones, in the hope that with Assad’s ouster, they may one day learn what happened to them.
World powers and international organisations have called for the urgent establishment of mechanisms for accountability.
But some members of the Alawite community fear that with Assad gone, they may be at risk of facing attacks from groups hungry for revenge, or driven by sectarian hate.
On Wednesday, angry protests erupted in several areas around Syria, including Assad’s hometown of Qardaha, over a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine that circulated online.
The Observatory said that one demonstrator was killed and five others wounded “after security forces… opened fire to disperse” the crowd in the central city of Homs.
‘We want peace’
The transitional authorities appointed by HTS said in a statement that the shrine attack was not recent, and that it dated back to “the time of the liberation” of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early this month.
The interior ministry said the attack was carried out by “unknown groups” and that “republishing” the video served to “stir up strife among the Syrian people at this sensitive stage”.
Images from the coastal city of Jableh, north of Tartus, showed large crowds in the streets, some chanting slogans including “Alawite, Sunni, we want peace”.
“We are calling for those who attacked the shrine to be held to account,” said protester Ali Daoud.
The Observatory said the protests erupted after a video began circulating Wednesday showing “an attack by fighters” on an important Alawite shrine in the Maysaloon district of Syria’s second city Aleppo.
It said five workers were killed and that the shrine was set ablaze.
Assad long presented himself as a protector of minority groups in Sunni-majority Syria.
In the city of Latakia, protester Ghidak Mayya, 30, decried “violations” against the Alawite community.
“For now… we are listening to calls for calm,” he said, warning that too much pressure on the community “risks an explosion”.
Fabrice Balanche, a Middle East expert from France’s University Lumiere Lyon 2, estimated the Alawite community’s numbers at around 1.7 million, or around nine percent of the Syrian population.
“The Alawites were very close to Bashar’s regime,” he said. “Their association with the regime risks provoking collective revenge against them — even more so as Islamists consider them heretics.”
