Since 6 March, attacks against the Alawite population in Syria have intensified, taking the form of veritable massacres that have left several hundred civilians dead. Following a bloody armed insurrection by pro-Assad militias, various armed factions affiliated to Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTS), jihadist groups and other armed groups linked to the Syrian National Army, directly linked to the Turkish authorities, which now together constitute the Damascus government's new Syrian army, have waged a campaign of mass executions targeting the Alawite community in the country's coastal regions. Under the pretext of fighting against the “remnants of the Assad regime”, it is above all a logic of sectarian hatred that dominates the massacres and a feeling of “revenge” by making a false equivalence between the Alawites and the former regime. Certain jihadist groups, for their part, use a more fundamentalist discourse, referring to Alawites as “miscreants” to justify their killings. What is going on in Syria today is not just a war between different armed groups, but above all sectarian massacres.
Confessionalism is a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes and reactionary organisations, used to control and divide the exploited, and to channel popular anger away from the real issues: democracy, social justice and equality. Since coming to power, the new Syrian regime led by Ahmad Al-Shara (formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) has shown no willingness to build a democratic, social and inclusive society and to guarantee equality for the various ethnic and religious groups. Far from breaking with the authoritarian logic of the past, the former founder of the jihadist group Al-Nusra Front, Al-Shara has maintained a policy of exclusion that has fuelled divisions and sectarian tensions, serving the interests of reactionary forces, while also opening the door to instrumentalisation by foreign powers, from Israel to Iran to Turkey.
The massacres against the Alawite population in the coastal regions are the responsibility of the new Syrian authorities. At no time did they prevent this outbreak of violence and sectarian hatred, and on the contrary they contributed to it, both directly and by creating the political conditions that led to these massacres. Similarly, the new regime has not put in place a mechanism to promote a comprehensive and long-term transitional justice process, aimed at punishing all individuals and groups involved in war crimes. This could have played a crucial role in preventing acts of revenge and the increase in sectarian tensions. But of course, Ahmed al-Shara and his allies in power have no interest in seeing such a transitional justice mechanism come into being for fear of themselves being singled out and judged for their own crimes and abuses against the Syrian people.
The recent memorandum of understanding between the government in Damascus and the autonomous authority in north-eastern Syria, dominated by the Kurdish forces of the PYD, and the attempts at rapprochement with certain sectors of the Druze population in the Suwayda region are evidence of the new regime's need to bolster its legitimacy - badly shaken by the mass executions - at national, regional and international level. However, these steps are largely insufficient, fragile and limited given the scale of the issues at stake. Self-determination for the peoples of Syria, freedom for women and fraternal coexistence between the various faiths and ethnic groups today require a political tool, a democratic and progressive bloc capable of building a counter-power and resisting all kinds of domination. We know that only the self-organisation of the working classes fighting for democratic and progressive demands will open the way to real emancipation. Only the self-activity of workers, women and young people from all communities will be able to break the chains of oppression and build a free, democratic, pluralist and secular Syria.
March 18, 2025