Addressing the topic of massacres in “liberated” Syria is like confronting a nightmare that haunts every Syrian’s night — a horror that forces us to ask terrifying questions and entertain unbearable hypotheses, such as: “What are the similarities and differences between the massacres of the coast and those of Suwayda?”

A hypothesis like that is horrifying in itself, because it rests on the comparison of one massacre to another: is one smaller, the other larger? One atrocious, the other more atrocious? Is the pain of one deeper or more unbearable than the other?

In truth, a massacre is simply a massacre; a barbaric event, a collective murder of innocents, and a collective wound to the souls of survivors. Yet from a political perspective, a “massacre” is also a tool of governance — an instrument for spreading fear and consolidating authority. At the same time, it is a tool for mobilizing armed groups, official and unofficial alike, through an ideological structure rooted in indoctrination and sustained by religious decrees and a dehumanizing image of the “other.” These structures reproduce a set of unshakable certainties — pre-state, even pre-“Syria” itself — summed up in the now-tragic question: “What does it mean to be Syrian?”

Under the pretext that “remnants” of armed groups had killed members of the General Security Directorate, forces from General Security, the Ministry of Defense, and “uncontrolled militias” launched an attack on the coastal region on March 6, an assault that lasted two days. It reduced the question of identity to one brutal query: “Are you Alawite or Sunni?” What followed was either execution or commands such as: “Howl, you pig, you Nusayri!” The result: roughly 1,400 civilians killed, in a toll that remains incomplete.

In Suwayda, under a different pretext — “resolving clashes between Bedouins and Druze” — the massacres unfolded over a week starting July 13. They began with the closure of the Damascus–Suwayda highway, the province’s only lifeline, effectively besieging it. Attackers from General Security, the Ministry of Defense, and allied tribal militias stormed the western and northern countryside with tanks, heavy weapons, swords, and shears. They targeted civilians in remote neighborhoods, entering their homes and madāfas (communal gathering halls) with the same first question: “Are you Druze?” The result was again more than 1,000 civilian deaths, according to multiple estimates, some even suggesting the number was far higher.

The massacres of the coast and Suwayda resemble each other in their humiliations, killings, and burnings, and in the killers’ pride in filming themselves as they carried out their crimes. The target was always the “other” Syrian, stripped of their Syrian-ness — and thus made killable.

This killing did not end when the massacres stopped; it continues to this day through fear, abduction, intimidation, and the failure to contain sectarian tension. The massacre has become a continuing act, not a single moment, a perpetual practice that fragments the meaning of Syrian belonging and threatens, if not already destroys, the social contract. In this way, massacre becomes a method of governance: a way to control bodies through fear and death.

Exercises in Governance through Massacre: The Siege

The attack on the coast began as retaliation for an ambush carried out by the “remnants,” which was labeled an attempted coup. Indeed, members of the General Security were killed that day — but what followed transformed “security control” into a policy of humiliation, escalating slowly, day by day, as an act of revenge against Alawites for being Alawites, before being a punishment for supposedly supporting Bashar al-Assad.

Unlike in the coast, the violence in Suwayda carried a distinct intent of extermination — evident in the chants and acts of cultural annihilation through the destruction of symbols and the use of degrading insults. Unlike the coastal region, Suwayda possessed an internal political representation intertwined with its religious authority — embodied in Sheikh al-Hijri, who refused to submit to the interim government and rejected the surrender of arms. This explains Damascus’s efforts to promote “new leaderships,” personified by figures such as Laith al-Balous.

What is also striking is Damascus’s ability to mobilize armed crowds in both the assault on the coast and the attack on Suwayda. Alongside official forces, tribal militias, emergency tribal units, and “undisciplined armed elements” were present. In both cases we are confronted with a surplus of force — armed masses that the regime activates but cannot fully control. That precisely exposes Damascus’s method of disciplining and producing obedience: those who will not submit are subjected to punishment and death at the hands of “popular” elements that are formally outside the state’s apparatus; tribal fighters whom Ahmad al-Sharaa publicly thanked for “their heroic stances.”

We also observe that the coast has become, in effect, a disaster zone without any official proclamation to that effect. One can spot campaigns of “aid” and “donations” aimed at redress, yet why is the coast being treated like a besieged area if it is Syrian territory under Damascus’s sovereignty? The indirect siege of the coast after the massacre took an even clearer form in Suwayda: the province was effectively besieged, infrastructure destroyed in more than thirty villages across its northern and western countryside, and a bone-crushing dispute over who had the right to deliver aid. Suwayda’s authorities rejected, despite the siege, the entry of any truck belonging to an official institution; only humanitarian organization convoys were permitted, and only via the highway that supposedly links Damascus and Suwayda and which the authorities insist is “open.”

Both sieges, in their implications, amount to starvation and humiliation. Individual crimes and violations continue in the coastal region to this day, alongside an unannounced siege in which residents have no security, no jobs, and no means of livelihood.

Governance Exercises Through Massacre: Humiliation

Kidnapping and sexual-violence crimes against women and children in the coast were documented after the massacre. The debasement of Alawites and the lack of accountability for “individual acts” threaten the social fabric of the coastal Alawi community, especially through the deliberate targeting and abduction of women, and the official denial of these cases despite reports documenting such kidnappings.

In Suwayda, the attackers stamped their humiliation through the abduction of women and girls in parallel with killings, arson, and destruction. As of 26 August, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had documented 293 abducted women from Suwayda; 42 of them were released via prisoner exchanges, two are held in Adra prison, and 14 were killed after abduction. Further batches of women were later returned, some appearing in the media coerced into wearing the hijab, while others were quietly returned under a veil of secrecy.

The file of violations against women remains the most painful and grievous. One of the basic principles of war is to keep women and children out of the battlefield and not to use them as instruments of pressure or bargaining. Yet the interim authority failed to prevent or prosecute these crimes, and instead treated Suwayda’s women as bargaining chips in prisoner exchanges and political deals.

Confronting these facts requires that the authorities adopt a state mentality rather than a gangs’ mentality. It requires a public awakening of conscience and the courage to face uncomfortable truths, at minimum through national rhetoric and conduct that respect the tragedy endured by these women and by the besieged minorities. Above all, it requires respect for Syria itself, which is in danger of being turned, across its territory, into a testing ground for techniques of massacre and siege.