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Syrian Alawites warn of retaliation against attacks targeting minority group

Iran Press TV

Friday, 28 November 2025 10:59 AM

The head of the Supreme Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad has warned that any attack targeting the minority community 'will not go unanswered' amid a new outbreak of sectarian violence triggered by HTS‑backed militias.

Sheikh Ghazal Ghazal made the remarks on Thursday, two days after tens of thousands of Syrians protested in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, as well as in the neighboring provinces of Hama and Homs.

The demonstrators called for an end to repeated attacks on Alawite‑majority neighborhoods and the killings and abductions of their residents.

In Latakia, reports said militants loyal to the ruling Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) regime fired live ammunition to disperse demonstrators, seriously wounding one of them.

Ghazal said the repression of the anti-regime protests was not an isolated incident, but marked the end of an era of "silence and submission."

The Alawites will not accept an administration that "slaughters" them based on their identity, he emphasized, warning, "Any attack on the Alawite community will not go unanswered."

Ghazal also repeated calls for the Alawites' right to self-determination through federalism and political decentralization, as well as an end to the killings, and the release of thousands of detainees.

"We seek only what is right and nothing else," he added, stressing that there will be no compromise in this path.

The demonstrations were largely triggered by a deadly assault on Alawite civilians, carried out by HTS regime-backed tribal militias. The militias, linked to a Bedouin community, blamed the Alawites for the murder of a couple.

The attackers stormed the al-Muhajireen neighborhood in Homs, burning homes and shops, destroying cars, and firing indiscriminately at residents, killing at least two people and injuring dozens.

Since the fall of Assad's government in December 2024, the HTS-led administration, which enjoys unconditional backing by Western and the Persian Gulf Arab countries, has engaged in sectarian killings, kidnappings, and persecution across Syria.

Once affiliated with al-Qaeda and Daesh, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani seized power in Syria following a rapid onslaught by his militant group.

The HTS administration has reportedly incorporated thousands of foreign Takfiri militants into the country's new military.

The violence forms part of a pattern seen across Syria since Assad's fall. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported nearly 11,000 civilian deaths since militant factions led by HTS seized power in December until October.

It documented widespread abuses, including field executions, torture, kidnappings and indiscriminate attacks.

The Israeli regime, meanwhile, has escalated its own strikes across the country, exploiting Syria's post-Assad instability to grab more land from the Arab country.

Back in March, sectarian tensions escalated in Syria's coastal areas, leaving at least 1,400 people dead, according to HTS officials, most of them the Alawites.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) recorded more than 1,700 killings in the same regions.