Humanitarian groups helping persecuted Christians shared reports this week of Islamic extremists attacking and threatening the remaining Christian minority in Syria, warning they were “next” after the elimination of Alawite Shia Muslims.
Syria experienced a sudden eruption of violence against Alawites in its western coastal territories this weekend, attacks described as “revenge” against the minority for perceived support of ousted dictator Bashar Assad. Assad and his family are Alawites, a minority sect within Shia Islam, and Sunni jihadists in the country consider all who share that identity opposed to their goals. Those jihadists have been emboldened by Assad’s ouster in December, which occurred after the Al Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a massively successful conquest campaign in late November 2024.
The HTS government, led by top jihadi Ahmed al-Sharaa, claimed on Thursday that a group of Assad sympathizers launched attacks against their forces in Latakia governate, an Alawite stronghold. Sharaa’s regime admitted to launching an “operation” against the alleged fighters, but claimed to avoid any civilian casualties. The regime ultimately admitted to widespread evidence of such atrocities and promised to establish a “committee” to investigate them. On Tuesday, they claimed to have arrested four people for violence that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitor group, documented had killed about 1,500 people and counting, hundreds of them confirmed civilians.
Widespread reports indicated that unknown jihadist parties massacred entire Alawite families in their homes and a drone strike campaign against rural Alawite communities. SOHR described the violence as “the bloodiest revenge ever since the fall of Al-Assad regime.”
While the attacks have overwhelmingly targeted Alawites, some reports indicate that Christians have also suffered threats and attacks. Under Assad, Christians were allowed to maintain churches and worship so long as they did not challenge Assad politically; the regime imprisoned and eliminated many Christian political dissidents, but did not persecute Christianity itself. As a result, the same Sunni jihadists who view Alawites as irredeemably pro-Assad distrust Christian communities and see them unfit to integrate into the fabric of the country, despite Christianity’s much more ancient presence in the country than Islam.
In a message emailed to supporters on Monday, Brian Orme, the CEO of the humanitarian agency Global Christian Relief, warned that the group’s supporters on the ground have documented attacks against Christians.
“The Church is under violent attack. HTS militants have unleashed brutal, unthinkable violence against Christian and Alawite communities,” Orme wrote, “wiping out entire towns, storming homes, and committing evil acts against innocent lives, including children and the elderly.”
“Survivors report militants celebrating these killings and directly threatening pastors with the chilling message: ‘Once we have greater control, you will be next,'” he added.
In addition to the attacks, Global Christian Relief reported that sources are documenting HTS – the de facto government of Syria, not just rogue jihadis on the ground – “using starvation as a weapon by refusing to pay Christian workers. Young men are being abducted and forced to convert, while suicide bombers are being prepared to target churches.”
The Vatican-affiliated news agency Asia News reported on Monday that it had evidence for the killing of over 800 Christians based on their religion in the massacres throughout the past weekend.
“According to the Iraqi Christian Foundation, which advocates for Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East, the death toll is 1,800. It alleges that entire villages are being slaughtered,” the outlet News Nation reported.
International Christian Concern (ICC), a humanitarian organization that focuses on helping persecuted Christians, indicated in a press release emailed to reporters on Tuesday that Christians are among several minorities facing severe persecution under HTS, including the Druze and the Kurds as well as the Alawites. ICC observed that “much of the narrative” on what is happening in Syria, including claims of a pro-Assad uprising, “relies on HTS’s account, a pattern seen before, obscuring whether this began as a skirmish or was a premeditated jihadist purge — though the slaughter of 830 civilians in five days points to the latter.”
“This bloodshed from an HTS-led government is hardly shocking,” ICC president Jeff King said in a statement. “It’s Al Qaeda and ISIS in a new guise. Much of the news likely reflects Syrian government spin, a tactic we’ve witnessed in the past, masking slaughter as mere stability measures.”
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