The images coming from Syria are unbearable. Civilians arrested and tortured; tens of bodies of men assassinated and thrown in a corner of a street; helicopters dropping bombs indiscriminately; armed men entering neighbourhoods and opening fire on buildings, behaving like a force of occupation. 

The images are unbearable, but repetitive; we have seen thousands of similar videos since 2011. Yet, there is a difference: now the forces of repression are the soldiers of the new “interim government,” who, not long ago, were called HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham). Before that were the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, and their Sunni sectarian allies. The victims are the members of the Alawi community from which the former dictator of Syria Bashar al-Assad came from. 

According to The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, thirty different sectarian massacres killed over 745 civilians in merely 48 hours. This is nothing less than a massacre. The last wave of sectarian violence in Syria overthrew perceptions of victim-and-perpetrator.

There are different narratives that try to explain what triggered the latest sectarian violence: clashes that erupted in the first week of March between the security forces of the “interim government” that were deployed in Alawi villages such as Ad-Dali in Jabla region and others, and armed groups that were the fighting forces of the old regime. 

Assad loyalists ambushed “interim government” forces in Latakia and killed dozens of security personnel. The reaction was generalized massacres of Alawis in Latakia and Banias countryside. 

Yet, sectarian tensions and violence in provinces with mixed sectarian populations – Sunni and Alawi – was increasing since early February – only two months after the Islamist rebels entered Damascus. In-fighting spread quickly to Latakia, Tartus, Hama, and Homs. The situation got out of control when former regime loyalists ambushed and killed dozens of Sunni fighters associated with the new authorities, killing dozens of them. This triggered a military operation that degenerated into sectarian massacres.

Was Sectarian Violence Avoidable?

Why this violence? And was it avoidable? Deploying “interim government” forces composed exclusively of Sunni fighters with sectarian ideology deep into Alawi regions was going to trigger violence. Yet, the challenge of the new government is bigger than that. The coastal areas of Syria including towns such as Latakia and Banyas, as well as Homs and their countryside, are areas of mixed sectarian population, with Sunni, Alawi, and Christian neighbourhoods and villages cohabit. A decade of war has left Syria in ruins, the number of casualties could be as high as 500 thousand, and thousands more were tortured, kidnapped, and disappeared. In a mixed sectarian population, everyone knows who the henchmen of the old regime were, who stopped people on checkpoints, tortured them, and killed them.  

While intellectuals and human rights activists were calling for justice through a legal process, such ideas are impossible: no legal process anywhere can handle injustice of that magnitude, and the Syria emerging from Assadist dictatorship has no means for that. Instead, what has been happening is acts of vengeance against old regime elements, as well as rejection from the old army officers to accept the new power dynamic. 

Sending “interim government” forces into these areas to arrest remnants of the old regime was pouring oil on fire. These forces are not only backed by ideology but also fought what they call a sectarian war for a decade. They are not only full of hatred but also lack discipline. Any arrests of former army officers would be seen by the Alawi community as an attempt to arrest their community leaders and ultimately as acts of sectarian revenge. 

Sectarianism and Regionalism

Before the violence in the Alawi coastal regions erupted, there were tensions between the new regime in Damascus and the Jaramana neighbourhood – a suburb of Damascus with a Druze majority. Any arrests there for whatever reasons could also have been seen as an attack on the region itself and on the community. 

Syria has a sectarian problem it cannot deny. This is not new: the Baath regime imposed a “unity” from above by the force of a dictatorial state. However, that state does not exist anymore; it was shattered to pieces with the war. The worst mistake today is to deny that sectarian reality, or to try to impose an impossible unity by force. 

The most recent massacres against Alawis and the sense of insecurity will lead to demographic reshuffling, where the mixed sectarian areas will be divided once again, with Alawis moving away to seek safety. The Druze in the south and the Kurds in the north-east will do the same, while the Christian outflow will also restart, following the optimism of Christian leaders in previous months. The forces of the interim government will be seen as —and will act like— a force of occupation in neighbourhoods with non-Sunni majorities. 

The sectarian, anti-Alawi violence in Syria will have long term consequences throughout the Middle East. It will trigger a new sense of victimhood among Shiite communities in Lebanon – already traumatized by the Israeli war of the last year – as well as in Iraq. It will also impact the Alevis in Turkey, who will emerge with newer senses of fear but also alienation towards their own state and its policies. 

Some Syrian activists –the few of them who condemn the sectarian killings rather than calling for revenge– now once again call the Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa as “al-Julani”, with his old al-Qaeda nom de guerre. But he is now the new Assad, the leader of a sectarian Syria, who can act through the instruments of its state institutions. The paradox of al-Sharaa –independent of the dress he puts on and the ideological discourse he puts forward– is that the only instrument at his disposal, and what is left of the Syrian state, is the sectarian armed groups he leads, and little else. He will be unable to force the unity of Syria with those forces—a Syria in ruins, and a Syria where four major powers have armed presence on its different parts. The best that could be done is keep these sectarian forces outside non-Sunni regions of Syria, acknowledge the sectarian as well as ethnic (Kurdish) reality of Syria, and negotiate managing this complex reality by avoiding the use of more violence.