Syria executes hundreds of Alawite civilans: ‘They killed every man they saw’

17 comments

1. [removed]

2. Over 300 Alawite civilians were killed in Syria in what appears to be retaliatory attacks by the new government and its allies.

   The violence erupted after an ambush by Assad loyalists killed at least 50 government troops near Jableh. In response, pro-government forces attacked Alawite villages, sparing women but executing men.

   Graphic footage of the killings surfaced online. Alawite communities fear further attacks, with many displaced and calling for outside intervention, including some voices [asking for help from Israel.](https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syzbb1fijl)

3. There’s a good article in this month’s Foreign Affairs about the challenges in the Middle East, including the HTS (who currently run the government) doing revenge killings and mob violence against Alawites (who backed Assad). International involvement is going to make it worse. Turkey supports HTS, the US supports the Kurds, Israel with the Druze. It’s going to remain fractious until the ruling party focuses on justice and leadership and not settling old debts or building power.

4. Sorry Israel, don’t really care you don’t like the new government. You’ve killed a lot more civilians than they have. You also started attacking them even after they kicked out Hezbollah and the Iranians, despite them explicitly stating they had no desire for conflict with you.

5. Would it be bad if they were Bashar henchmen or collaborators?

6. And here i thought israel was being paranoid with all the druze autonomy and the buffer zone stuff

7. It should be noted that this is an Israeli source and there is currently a great deal of propaganda on both sides about what exactly happened yesterday. There was violence between the new government and regime remnants and / or Alawite civilians, and the exact details are not clear.

   I bring this up not to minimize the horror of attacks on civilians or the moral culpability of the new regime, if that is in fact what happened. However, Israel is presently attacking Syria, seizing land and bombing the country. Netanyahu recently demanded that Syria demilitarize the entire country south of Damascus, which is insane. Statements from the Israeli government seem to be seeking a justification for further intervention based on “the protection of minorities,” which to me is not credible. Even if there is retaliatory violence, that does not give Israel the right to violate Syrian sovereignty, and unless the violence gets extremely bad and truly requires outside intervention to stop, an Israeli war with Syria will make things worse.

   I was prompted to make this comment because OP mentions Israel on a story which does not involve it and shares Israeli sources which claim that Syrian minorities are asking for Israeli intervention. On /r/geopolitics we out to be aware of the possibility of propaganda and the possibility that states seek pretexts for actions they want to take.

8. *sigh* My hopes that the new Syrian leadership wouldn’t be evil was not high. Still sad.

   Maybe this at least means the local refugees won’t be expelled, the ones I know do not want to go back.

9. Damn I really thought for a minute things could be different but I fell for the propaganda out of the new government hook line and sinker. This is just awful.

10. [removed]

11. Awfully convenient occurrence when the genocidal regime in Israel is trying tpmmale a case for invading Syria dont you think?

12. Looks like Syria is going to dive in chaos for a long long time. I don’t see any side strong enough to grab power soon. Some neighbors are going to suffer and some are going to gain.

13. Sadly, not unexpected.

    Somehow expecting a country that went through a decade and a half of a brutal civil war along ethnic, religious and geopolitical lines to simply lay down their arms and peacefully co-exist was unrealistic. The fact that the Kurds have steadfastly refused to integrate for months simply means the odds of Syria breaking up is growing quicker by the second.

    Then there is the actual geopolitical angle. There are tons of external countries all with conflicting interest and motives. The Israeli already have aggressively moved to expand the Golan Heights’ region and has basically laid a soft claim to much of Southern Syria. The Russians and Iranians despite setbacks are still players and arguably both are probably okay with the idea of an Alawite rump state by the coast (both of Russia’s bases are located in the region). Likewise, I think Israel will rather deal with Russia as opposed to new HTS government.

    Lastly, simply how the Assad regime was setup, the average Alawite person is probably more likely to have military training compared to an average person. An angry, motivative, military trained, religious minority with international backers? Yea, this will escalate quickly.

14. Par for course since they WILLINGLY AND COLLECTIVELY CHOSE to abuse their elevated status at the expense of the majority …

15. And to think of how much cheering was going on when Assad got ousted. How entirely predictible this all was.

16. Sounds like genocide to me

17. When you realise you are alive only because you were somehow born on the right of the globe.

Comments are closed.