Syrians describe the terror as Alawite family killed in their homes

The Syrian temporary leader has appealed to unity, as the murders of violence and revenge continued in areas that were loyal to the overthrow of the former leader of Bashar Al-Assad on Sunday.

Hundreds of people allegedly left their homes in the Latakia and Tartus coastal provinces – the support of Assad’s support.

Local residents described scenes of robbery and mass murders, including children.

In Hai Al Kusour, mostly alawite to the neighborhood in the coastal city of Banias, residents say that the streets filled with scattered bodies, accumulated and covered with blood. Men of different ages were shot there, witnesses said.

People were too scared to even look through their windows on Friday. The internet connection is unstable, but when they are connected, they learned of the death of their neighbors from Facebook posts.

One man, Ayman Fares, told the BBC that he had been saved by a recent prison. He posted a video on Facebook on his Facebook account in August 2023. Criticizing Bashar Al-Assad for his corrupt rule. He was arrested shortly after, and was released only when the forces led by Islamist released prisoners after the fall of Assad last December.

The fighters who hopped the streets of Hai Al Kusour recognized him, so death was spared, but not robbery. They took his cars and continued to attack other houses.

“They were foreigners, they could not recognize their identity or language, but they seemed to be Uzbekia or Chechnya,” Mr. Fares told me on the phone.

“There were also some Syrians with them, but not from official security. Some civilians were also among those who made the murder,” he added.

Mr. Fares said he saw families killed in their homes, and women and children covered with blood. Some families ran to their roofs to hide but were not spared bloodshed. “That’s terrible,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in the UK has documented more than 740 civilians killed in the coastal cities of Latakia, Jableh and Banias. Another 300 members of the security forces and the remains of the Assad regime died in conflicts.

BBC failed to check the death toll independently.

Mr. Fares said things stabilized when the Syrian army and security forces arrived at the city of Banias. They threw out other fractions from the city and provided corridors to families to approach safe areas, he said.

But another Banias resident who asked us not to use his full name, confirmed Mr. Fares’s account. But who lived in Kusour with his wife and 14-year-old daughter, he fled the house with the help of security forces.

“They came to our building. We were too scared only by listening to the fire and screams of people in the neighborhood. We learned about the death of sporadic posts on Facebook when we were able to connect. But when they came to our building, we thought we were done,” he said.

“They were after the money. They knocked on the door of our neighbor, taking his car, money and all the gold or valuables he had in his house. But he was not killed.”

Alia and his family were picked up by his Sunni neighbors, followed by another branch of Islam and now stay with them. “We lived together for years, Alawites, Sunni and Christians. We never experienced it,” he told me.

“Sunni has rushed to protect Alawites from a murder that happened and are now official forces in the city to get back.”

But he said that families were taken to a neighborhood school, which is predominantly sunite, where they will be protected until the members of the homicides were expelled by Banias.

The violence began on Thursday after Assad’s loyalists – who refused to give up weapons – ambushed security forces around the coastal cities of Lataki and Jableho, killing dozens.

Ghiath Dallah, a former Brigadier General in the Assad Army, announced a new rebellion against the current government, saying that he had established a “military council for Syria’s liberation.”

Some reports suggest that former Safety Safety Officers who refused to give up weapons form a group of resistance in the mountains.

Mr. Fares said that most Alawite communities reject them and the wrong Dallah and other loyalists of hard Assad for violence.

“They benefit from the bloodsucker that happens. What we need now is an official security to overcome and prosecute the killers of fractions that have performed mass murder, so the country renews security,” he said.

But the other also blames the temporary President Ahmad al-Sharaa, saying that he dismantled the Syrian security, an army and a police institution without a clear strategy for dealing with thousands of officers and staff other unemployed.

Some of these individuals, especially among the police, had nothing to do with the murder during the Assad regime. New authorities have also rejected thousands of public employees from their work.

With 90% of Syria’s population living below the poverty limit, and thousands are left without revenue, it is a fertile ground for rebellion.

There are divided views in Syria to what is happening. The wider community condemns the murder of any civilian and demonstration in Damascus to mourn the death and condemn violence.

But in the last two days, there have been a call for “jihad” in different parts of Syria. Banias residents said that, along with fractions, there were some civilians who were armed and associated forces in the murder.

The Syrian majority of Sunni faced the crimes on the hands of the Assad’s forces in the last 13 years. This encouraged the sectague hatred mainly to the minority of Alawit, where members of the community are related to war crimes.

According to human rights groups, there is evidence that Alawit’s safety officers were involved in the murder and torture of thousands of Syrians, most of whom are Sunni Muslims, during the Assad regime.

These members of the army and security forces who were killed are mostly from the Sunni community, and now some in the Sunni community call for retaliation, but the president has called for tranquilizers.

Sharaa, whose Islamist forces demolished Assad three months ago, must now balance, providing security for all justice for the crimes of the Assad regime and his assistants.

Although he has the authority of some torso that helped him to be power, some fractions are obviously beyond his control. These fractions include foreign fighters with a radical Islamist program.

In order to take Syria to a safe and democratic future, many claim that Sharaa will need to end the presence of all foreign fighters and provide a constitution that protects the rights of all Syrians, regardless of their background or religion.

Although it is seen that it works on a legal framework for such a constitution, control of violent fractions and expulsion of foreign fighters will show a great challenge.