Persecution Watch: Syria’s new Islamist regime escalates the persecution of Christians as fears of massacres by jihadists grow

Syria’s new Islamist regime escalates the persecution of Christians as fears of massacres by jihadists grow

Rhoda Wilson

Uzay Bulut

The persecution of Christians in Syria has been escalating since Ahmed Al-Sharaa took over as the country’s president, after his al-Qaeda affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham terrorist group overthrew the Assad regime in December.

Al-Sharaa recently started dressing in a suit and tie, and is now presenting himself to the West as a “moderate.” In schoolbooks, however, his government has been replacing the word “law” with “sharia,” and has been using Islamic teaching to recruit the country’s new army.

At the end of February, the Gatestone Institute reported that since the jihadists’ takeover of Syria around 500,000 Christians in the country have been faced with increased persecution and abductions.

– After forces from the al-Qaeda affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (“HTS”) terrorist group conquered Damascus and overthrew Syria’s Assad regime in December 2024, they urged the residents of the Valley of the Christians to surrender any weapons they kept for self-defence, telling them that civilians would not be harmed. Since the jihadists’ takeover of Syria, however, around 500,000 Christians in the country have been faced with increased persecution and abductions.

– On February 16, more Christians were abducted from another village in the area. Their kidnappers, according to sources on the ground, are torturing them.

– “HTS’s successive renamings and ‘rebrandings’ appear to echo al-Qaeda’s own strategy in Syria of establishing branches and presenting them as locally-grown organisations arising in response to Syrians’ needs.” — US Commission on International Religious Freedom, November 2022.

– Al-Sharaa recently started dressing in a suit and tie, and is now presenting himself to the West as a “moderate.” He has spoken of plans to form an inclusive transitional government representing diverse communities that will build institutions and run the country until it can hold free and fair elections. In schoolbooks, however, his government has been replacing the word “law” with “sharia” and has been using Islamic teaching to recruit the country’s new army.

– “Under HTS-control in Idlib, Christian clergy are not allowed to walk outside in any clothing that makes them recognisable as priests or pastors. Crosses have been removed from church buildings.” — Open Doors, December 2024.

Sadly, the persecution of Christians in Syria’s “Valley of the Christians” (Wadi al-Nasara), overwhelmingly inhabited by Greeks originally from Antioch, has been escalating.

After forces from the al-Qaeda affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (“HTS”) terrorist group conquered Damascus and overthrew Syria’s Assad regime in December 2024, they urged the residents of the Valley of the Christians to surrender any weapons they kept for self-defence, telling them that civilians would not be harmed. Since the jihadists’ takeover of Syria, however, around 500,000 Christians in the country have been faced with increased persecution and abductions.

[HTS] remains a potent source of a Salafi-jihadism that restricts the religious freedom of non-conforming Sunni Muslims and threatens the property, safety and existence of religious minority groups such as Alawites, Christians and Druze. Further, HTS’s cultivation of a mutually and politically expedient relationship with Turkey – which itself represents a distinct threat to vulnerable religious minority groups via its military incursions in northern Syria – compounds the perilous religious freedom conditions in and near Idlib.

In 2021 and 2022, HTS has continued to perpetrate some of the same human rights abuses – including torture, forced disappearance, rape and other sexual violence, and killing in detention – that the United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria documented for the organisation and its predecessors through 2020. Having taken over government prisons and established additional jails, HTS has used sectarian-motivated detention and related abduction and demands for ransom against members of minority groups. Religious minorities, including non-Sunni Muslims and Druze – both longstanding targets of Sunni rebel groups’ discrimination, harassment and compelled Sunnism –  have converted to Sunni Islam or fled HTS territories, and those who remain are not represented in the official bodies governing the area.

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West-Backed Jihadists In Syria Massacre Over 1000 Alawite & Christian Men, Women & Children

Update(1905ET): After several days of radical Sunni Islamist militants targeting religious minorities in Syria for mass killings, mainly in coastal areas, the mainstream media has belatedly begun to cover it (as the killings are growing to the point of getting too hard to ignore). Some correspondents estimated that there are thousands dead and wounded, mostly Alawites but also Syrian Christians among them, as post-Assad Syria unravels under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham's (HTS) Jolani.

"The death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, a war monitoring group said Saturday, making it one of the deadliest acts of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago," The Associated Press reports.

The jihadists, which include foreign fighters as well as ruling HTS members, in some cases are simply going into the homes of non-Sunnis and massacring whole families. The terrorists haven't been shy about uploading their killings on the internet as well as in livestreams. Men, women, children, and even babies are being brutally murdered.

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