Village male residents pray during the funeral of four Syrian security force members killed in clashes with loyalists of ousted president Bashar Assad in coastal Syria, in the village of Al-Janoudiya, west of Idlib, Saturday, March 8, 2025. © Omar Albam, AP
Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa called for peace on Sunday following widespread communal violence between the country’s Sunni Muslim majority and Alawites accused of supporting the deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad. More than 700 Alawite civilians have been killed since fighting broke out Thursday, a UK-based war monitor said.
Damascus: Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa called for peace on Sunday after hundreds were killed in coastal areas in the worst communal violence since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad.
“We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace, we can live together,” Sharaa, the interim president, said as clashes continued between forces linked to the new Islamist rulers and fighters from Assad’s Alawite religious minority.
“Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival,” Sharaa said in a circulated video, speaking at a mosque in his childhood neighbourhood of Mazzah in Damascus. “What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges.”
Syria’s interior ministry confirms ‘violations’ took place against Alawite minority
Syrian security sources said at least two hundred of their members were killed in the clashes with former army personnel owing allegiance to Assad after coordinated attacks and ambushes on their forces that were waged on Thursday.
The attacks spiralled into revenge killings when thousands of armed supporters of Syria’s new leaders from across the country descended to the coastal areas to support beleaguered forces of the new administration.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Saturday that 745 Alawite civilians were killed by security forces and allied groups since fighting broke out.
The war monitor said they were killed in “executions” carried out by security personnel or pro-government fighters, accompanied by the “looting of homes and properties”.
In total, it said the overall death since Thursday has climbed to 1,018, including also 125 security personnel and 148 fighters loyal Assad.
The authorities blamed summary executions of dozens of youths and deadly raids on homes in villages and towns inhabited by the religious minority on unruly armed militias who came to help the security forces and have long blamed Assad’s supporters for past crimes.
While Alawites have for decades made up a large part of the Assad family’s support base, not all members of the religious minority supported the toppled president.
Clashes continued overnight in several towns where armed groups fired on security forces and ambushed cars on highways leading to main towns in the coastal area, a Syrian security source told Reuters on Sunday.
Turkish backed factions
The commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, today called on the Syrian President to hold accountable those responsible for sectarian violence in coastal areas, accusing Turkish-backed factions of being primarily behind the killings. Abdi told Reuters in written comments that Sharaa must intervene to stop the massacres, saying that the factions “still supported by Turkey and the Islamist militants are mainly responsible.”
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)