Violence has surged again in the predominantly Alawite coastal region of Syria. The newly formed General Security Forces (GSF) fought against senior officers from the ousted Bashar Al-Assad regime in Latakia and Tartus governorates. The three days of fighting, between 6 and 8 March, resulted in bloodshed.
The Syrian Transitional Government swiftly mobilised military and security forces from the Ministries of Interior and Defence to break the siege and restore control. At the same time, a spontaneous campaign, utilising overtly sectarian anti-Alawite rhetoric, recruited non-government fighters to join the crackdown on the insurgency.
The fighters – primarily jihadists, including some foreign jihadists – went on the rampage, committing mass killings in numerous villages in Latakia, Tartus, and western Hama. The government eventually acknowledged reports of violations and promised an investigation.
The GSF operation against the insurgency had proceeded separately, and multiple testimonies commended their ability to restore security without targeting civilians, especially in mixed neighbourhoods of Homs and some villages in Latakia. Other reports, however, faulted the GSF for failing to prevent the violations.
Transitional President Ahmad Al-Sharaa delivered two speeches related to the events. On 7 March, he issued an ultimatum to the remnants of the former regime who had killed members of the GSF, ordering them to surrender their weapons. He also praised the army and police for their quick action to secure civilians and called on them to maintain order without committing violations or responding to provocations.
Such statements served as an implicit acknowledgement of the occurrence of sectarian violence during the military operations. Using language drawing heavily on Islamic scriptural references, he urged government forces to ensure the safety of captives and to strictly follow the orders of their commanders.
The second speech, on 9 March, openly acknowledged the massacres, which Al-Sharaa described as acts of revenge against the crimes committed for years by the former regime against the Syrian people.
He said that his government had sought to prevent such retaliatory acts after Al-Assad’s fall, but the recent attacks on government forces by remnants of the old regime had “shattered the wall that had preserved civil peace.” He vowed zero tolerance for former regime members, while pledging to bring to justice anyone who violated civilians’ rights or abused the authority of the state for personal gain.
He also announced the formation of a fact-finding committee to identify and bring to justice those responsible for the recent events. In addition, he said, a Supreme Committee for Civil Peace would be created to engage with residents of the coastal region to strengthen national unity and prevent a recurrence of such incidents.
It would be naïve to imagine that powerful elements of the Al-Assad regime would go quietly after losing power in December. Counter-revolutionary attempts to regain power were foreseeable, though the timing and execution were always difficult to predict.
The recent roundups of senior officers affiliated with the Al-Assad regime must have accelerated such plans. Many analysts believe that Iran had a hand in the recent insurgency, by funding and encouraging pro-Al-Assad officers to carry out operations that would undermine the credibility and control of the new government.
Undoubtedly, the insurgents included members of the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria, formed on 6 March to “liberate” Syria from the clutches of the “terrorist jihadist regime.”
Some analysts believe that the Al-Sharaa government’s lack of resolve on “transitional justice” – apprehending and prosecuting those responsible for the crimes against the Syrian people over the past 14 years – allowed remnants of the Al-Assad regime to regroup and coordinate their insurgency.
According to sources within the GSF, many of the insurgents captured during the military operations possessed “status settlement” cards, which had been issued by the new administration to former regime security personnel in exchange for surrendering their weapons and normalising their status. The process became so routine that cards would be issued without proper background checks on whether the recipient had committed crimes.
Others have criticised the government for failing to anticipate and take the appropriate precautions against such an insurgency. In part, they attribute this to an intelligence failure due to the loss of contact with certain embassies that could have provided the necessary intelligence.
Some sceptics are not convinced by Al-Sharaa’s discourse advocating civil peace in a unified Syrian state with equality for all before the law. His jihadist apast is all too recent, they say, and they doubt his ability or willingness to enforce the law against his fellow jihadists.
Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham, the Al-Qaeda breakaway group led by Al-Sharaa until its dissolution on 29 January, was the most powerful opposition militia group in Syria. With large numbers of foreign jihadists from the Caucasus and other parts of the world, it was renowned for its ruthless ferocity in battle.
During the campaign to overthrow Al-Assad in November and December last year, Al-Sharaa had been able to maintain discipline among these forces to prevent harm to civilians. But he clearly failed to do so when the GSF fell into the ambushes laid by remnants of the Al-Assad regime.
Al-Sharaa will somehow have to deal with one of the greatest challenges to his credibility: the jihadist forces that carried him into power. If he has a plan to clip their wings, it is unclear whether he is interested in acting on it.
They can still be of use to secure his hold on power by eliminating remnants of the Al-Assad regime. However, they present a major obstacle to integrating all Syrians into a genuine process of establishing civil peace in a new state. Al-Sharaa described the jihadists’ massacres of Alawite civilians as “excesses” committed by “undisciplined factions.”
The developments in the coastal region are not disconnected from events elsewhere in the country. In the south, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears determined to retain control over the additional territory Israel seized with the ostensible aim of creating a larger demilitarised zone.
According to reports from US sources, Israel has allocated around $1 billion for this purpose. It has said that it will protect the Syrian Druze and enlisted the Druze spiritual leader in Israel, Mouafak Tarif, to help to win them over. The Druze in Syria have staged angry protests against Israeli schemes to expand its hegemony and partition Syria.
Meanwhile, northeastern Syria has produced an unanticipated positive development. Up until this point, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have refused to disband and integrate into the new Syrian Army as individuals, stating that they would instead enlist as a corps, retaining their current command structure.
The Al-Sharaa government has rejected that alternative. The SDF had also signalled a willingness to cooperate with Israel to safeguard Kurdish rights in Syria. This did not reflect a secessionist intention but rather mistrust of the current government in Damascus, they said.
Then, on 10 March, after the failed insurgency in Latakia, Damascus and the SDF unexpectedly announced an agreement for the integration of the Kurds into all state institutions, with guarantees for their constitutional rights. The agreement also stated their joint rejection of any schemes to partition Syria.
Some had predicted earlier that widespread mistrust of the government would lead to the rise of a minorities’ coalition unifying the Kurds, Druze, and Alawites against it. The new government did, in fact, expose itself to such mistrust, with its overwhelmingly Sunni composition despite the pledges to establish a more inclusive one.
Its hastily composed police and military forces are also almost exclusively drawn from Sunni Muslims, reflecting a sectarian approach to state-building instead of a non-discriminatory citizen-based approach. It then continued to tolerate the jihadist factions and their sectarian rhetoric, which may have encouraged them to commit – and implicate the government in – their recent massacres of civilians.
Al-Sharaa has pledged to hold those responsible for these crimes accountable, “even if they are the closest people to me”. This and the efficacy of the fact-finding commission formed in response to demands by Syrian activists will be the next test of his credibility.
Meanwhile, the announcement of the SDF’s integration into state institutions has given his administration a much-needed boost. It is also an important step towards civil peace based on expanding political participation and diversity in government.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: