Alwaght- Alawites in Syria are still under the pressure of the interim government. Recently published images of a mass grave of the Alawites in Homs suburbs have brought the state of this minority in media spotlight. Also, reports said that the militias affiliated with the new government have distributed leaflets threatening to massacare the Alawites in western Homs suburbs. The leaflets tell the minority to choose between being masacared and leaving their homes.
In general, the massacring of the Alawites in Syria is seen as a key historical period in the Arab country after fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December.
During this incident in March 2025, armed groups acting under new Syrian rulers carried out a blind attack, massacring Alawites in western Syria. In the city of Banias, rescue workers turned a looted furniture store into a makeshift morgue as they found the lifeless bodies of Alawites in the streets.
On May 28, sources reported the killing of seven citizens from two Alawite families in west of the country. These Alawite citizens were residents of the village of Jura al-Maa in the Mashqita district of the coastal province of Latakia. They were working on their farms when they were attacked by armed groups.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had previously announced in a report that since the beginning of 2025, 683 citizens, including 20 women and 9 children, have been killed in revenge operations and religious extremism by armed groups. According to this report, 23 of these deaths were from Damascus province, 62 from Damascus suburbs, 242 from Homs, 129 from Hama, 65 from Latakia, 47 from Aleppo, 64 from Tartus, 15 from Idlib, 3 from Sweida, 28 from Daraa, and 5 from Deir Ez-Ezor.
Kidnapping of women
At the same time, The Cradle website in a report shed light on kidnapping of Alawite women in Syria. The report says that most of the kidnapped women are Alawite and are kidnapped by the armed groups serving the new rulers of Damascus and are transferred to Idlib to work as sexual slaves. Idlib is the stronghold of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which later last year seized the power from al-Assad government.
On the other hand, the widespread kidnappings and enslavement of Alawite women now being carried out by factions affiliated with the HTS is reminiscent of the enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women by ISIS terrorist group during the 2014 genocide in Sinjar, Iraq.
Terrorists in commander posts
The HTS-led new security forces of Syria have integrated in the new security structure of the country radical armed groups like Uyghurs of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) and Syrian Turkmen from the Syrian National Army that is supported by the Turkish intelligence. The TIP is now part of the Syrian security forces while it is banned as a terrorist organization in many countries.
On the other hand, radical and terrorist foreign forces have been given senior posts in new defense ministry. There are numerous reports that indicate that the General Security Units under the control of the HTS participated in the March 7 massacres in many Alawite areas of Syria. It has been said that foreign fighters were involved in these massacres, and that these extremist forces went door to door in Alawite villages and neighborhoods, executing all the men and looting the houses.
HTS, an offshoot of ISIS
Given the ideological roots of the HTS, transfer of the Alawite women to Idlib as sexual slaves is no surprise. The HTS that managed to seize Idlib on the strength of CIA-provided TOW missiles, has the same worldview as ISIS's. The group was originally founded by ISIS and led by the current Syrian President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known for his nom de guerre as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. Al-Sharaa was sent to Syria in 2011 by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to establish the Nusra Front, which was later renamed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Though the HTS and ISIS clashed in 2014, their relations, especially ideologicaly, continued. Even al-Baghdadi was killed in 2019 in Barisha village in HTS-controlled Idlib. Reports say that the ISIS leader was hiding for some time in the village.
