Unlock the digestive of free editor
Roula Khalaf, the FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Syria after clashes between pro-government forces and pro-Assad forces escalated into sectarian violence in what has become the biggest threat to the country’s stability since the end of civil war last year.
Many of those who were targeted were the Alavites, members of a minority sect, which belongs to former President Bashar al-Assad and who dominated the highest ranks of the former regime security forces.
As the ratings changed, the war monitors the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that more than 1,000 people had been killed since Sunday, most of them civilians. Financial Times was unable to independently verify the figures.
The Syrian Defense Ministry said the clashes were still ongoing on the coast of Sunday morning.
Temporary President Ahmed al-Sharaa called for calm on Sunday. Filmed speaking at a mosque in the Mezzeh neighborhood of Damascus, Sharaa said what happened was among the “expected challenges” and demanded cohabitation. “We can live together in this country, with the desire of God,” he said.
The riots began on Thursday after loyal armed factions against Assad, whose Sharaha -led Islamic rebels fled in December, clashed with government security and demanded a “uprising” in Latakia, a coastal province and former Assad Stronghold.
This escalated into inter-communal violence and sectarian killings as loyal forces against the Provisional Government arrived from outside the coastal area to suppress pro-Assad forces, according to residents and groups of rights.
Many of the former rebellious reports now responsible for security under the new interim administration, which distributed Assad’s army, blamed Alawites, along with former regime forces, for the atrocities that occurred during the war.
Alawite residents told FT they were sheltering in their homes, had relatives and neighbors killed or fleeing for fear of further attacks.
Anas Haidar, an Alawite translator from Baniyas, a city in southern Latakia, said he learned from his aunt that his 69-year-old uncle had taken on Friday on the roof of his apartment building and executed him along with other men living in the building.
“We thought the sounds we were hearing were shooting in the air or celebrations, but not: All these shots were in people,” he said, adding that his uncle had been a long opponent of the Assad regime.
On Saturday, while Haidar was preparing to leave, he received a call from another aunt, begging him to come to help her son, who was bleeding after being shot on the roof and later died. Haidar left the neighborhood in the car of a Sunni friend who sheltered him and other families for the night.
The scaling is one of the most serious threats so far to the legitimacy of the Syrian transitional government.
He also underlines the degree of the challenge he faces in the unification and rule of the nation, which is home to numerous sects and awake with weapons and armed factions, including former soldiers of the Assad regime.
About the time of the initial attacks, a group calling itself the military council for the liberation of Syria issued a statement by pledge to overthrow the government. The group is led by a former commander of the Assad Army Fourth Brutal Division, once led by Bashar Maher’s brother.
In the absence of a unified national security force, Sharaa has included some of the armed opposition factions under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defense earlier this year, but coordination, training and ideology vary extensively.
Mohammad Salah Shalati, a Sunni Sheikh from Latakia, said there was a widespread disappointment about the perceived lack of responsibility for those who worked for the previous regime.
“We have told the government,” this or that person has worked against us for the regime. “We know who they are, but they seek evidence,” he said. “The new government tells us to be patient. But the Sunnis were crushed for 60 years. . . After March 6, people don’t want forgiveness – they want to keep everyone in charge. “
Residents of the coastal areas who spoke to FT emphasized the difference between the behavior of what they called extremist factions and the general security forces linked to the Ministry of Interior, but said it belonged to the new authorities to keep them all in line.
The factions “are not illegal gangs. Technically they are law, the army,” Haidar said.
