Syrians describe terror as auitas families killed in their homes

The interim leader of Syria has appealed to the unit, since the violence and murders of revenge continued in loyal areas to the former wasteful leader Bashar al-Assad on Sunday.

According to reports, hundreds of people have fled their homes in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, Assad’s support strengths.

Local residents have described looting scenes and mass murders, even children.

In Hai Al Kusour, a predominantly Alawite neighborhood in the coastal city of Banias, residents say that the streets are full of scattered bodies, stacked and covered with blood. The men of different ages were shot dead there, witnesses said.

People were too scared to look outside their windows on Friday. The Internet connection is unstable, but when they connected they learned of their neighbors’ deaths by Facebook publications.

A man, Ayman likes, told the BBC that he was saved by his recent imprisonment. He had published a video on his Facebook account in August 2023 criticizing Bashar Al-Assad for his corrupt rule. He was arrested shortly after, and only released when the forces led by Islamists released the prisoners after the fall of Assad last December.

The combatants who raided Hai to the Kusour recognized him, so he was saved from death but not looting. They took their cars and continued attacking other houses.

“They were strangers, I can’t identify their identity or language, but they seemed to be Uzbek or Chehen,” Fares told me on the phone.

“There were also some Syrians with them, but not official security. Some civilians were also among those who carried out the murder,” he added.

Fares said he saw families killed in their own homes, and women and children covered with blood. Some families ran to their roofs to hide but did not save themselves from blood spill. “It’s horrible,” he said.

The Human Rights Observatory based in the United Kingdom documented more than 740 civilians killed in the coastal cities of Latakia, Jableh and Banias. It is reported that another 300 members of the security forces and remains of the Assad regime died in clashes.

The BBC has not been able to verify the number of deaths independently.

Fares said things stabilized when the Syrian army and security forces arrived in the city of Banias. They pushed other features outside the city and provided runners for families to access safe areas, he said.

Ali, another Banias resident who asked us not to use his full name, corroborated the account of Mr. Fares. Ali, who lived in Kusour with his wife and 14 -year -old daughter, fled his home with the help of security forces.

“They came to our building. We were too scared just listening to people’s fire and shouts in the neighborhood. We learned about deaths from sporadic Facebook publications when we managed to connect. But when they came to our building, we think we have finished,” he said.

“They were after money. They knocked on the door of our neighbor taking their car, their money and all the gold or the value objects he had at home. But he was not killed.”

Ali and his family were collected by their Sunni neighbors, who follow a different branch of Islam, and now they stay with them. “We live together for years, Alauitas, Sunitas and Christians. We never experience this,” he told me.

“The Sunitas rushed to protect the Alauitas from the murder that occurred and now the official forces are in the city to restore order.”

Ali said that the families were taken to a school in a neighborhood that is predominantly Sunita, where they will be protected until the members of the factions that carried out the murders are expelled from banias.

Violence began on Thursday after Assad’s loyal ones, who refused to give up weapons, ambushed the security forces around the coastal cities of Latakia and Jableh, killing dozens of them.

Ghiath Dallah, a former brigade general in the Assad’s army, has announced a new rebellion against the current government, saying that he was establishing the “Military Council for the Liberation of Syria”.

Some reports suggest that former security officers of the Assad regime who refused to give up weapons are forming a resistance group in the mountains.

Mr. Fares said that the majority of the Alauita community rejects and blames them and other loyal of the hard line for violence.

“They benefit from the bloodshed that is happening. What we need now is the official security to prevail and prosecute the murderers of the factions that made the mass murder so that the country restores security,” he said.

But others also blame the interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, saying that he dismantled Syrian security, army and police establishments without a clear strategy to deal with thousands of officers and personnel left unemployed.

Some of these people, especially among the police, had nothing to do with the murder during the Assad regime. The new authorities also dismissed thousands of public employees of their work.

With 90% of the population of Syria who lives below the poverty line and thousands without income, it is a fertile terrain for a rebellion.

There is a division in opinions in Syria about what is happening. The community in general condemns the murder of any civilian and demonstrations have been organized in Damascus to cry the deaths and condemn violence.

But in the last two days, there were also calls for “jihad” in different parts of Syria. The residents in Banias said that, together with the factions, there were some civilians who were armed and joined forces in the murder.

Syria’s majority Sunnites have faced atrocities at the hands of the Assad regime forces in the last 13 years. This fed sectarian hatred mainly towards the Alauita minority, where community members are affiliated with war crimes.

According to human rights groups, there is evidence that Alawsian security officers were involved in the murder and torture of thousands of Syrians, most of which are Sunni Muslims, during the Assad regime.

Army members and security forces that were killed are mainly from the Sunni community and now some in the Sunni community are asking for reprisals, but the president has requested calm.

Sharaa, whose Islamist forces knocked up Assad three months ago, must now balance everyone’s security with the search for justice for the crimes of the Assad regime and his henchmen.

While he has authority over some of the troops that helped him with power, some factions are clearly out of control. These factions also include foreign combatants with a radical Islamist agenda.

To bring Syria to a safe and democratic future, many argue that Sharaa needs to end the presence of any foreign combat and deliver a constitution that protects the rights of all Syrians, regardless of their background or religion.

While it is seen that he works for the legal framework for such a Constitution, controlling violent factions and expelling foreign combatants will be a great challenge.