The Jihadist Massacre in Latakia

The jihadists now running things in Damascus have just ripped off their “moderate” masks. Their “security services” have been slaughtering Alawite civilians — men, women, and children in Latakia and Tartous — with estimates of those killed now ranging from 1,000 to 4,000.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the de facto ruler of Syria, two months ago traded in his military uniform for a conservative Western suit, and assured the West that he had long ago cut his ties to ISIS and al-Qaeda. He also assured the minorities in Syria — the Alawites, Kurds, Druze, and Christians — that they had nothing to worry about. Thousands of murdered Alawite civilians in Latakia have just proved him wrong.

More on what has been happening to the Alawites can be found here: “Tulsi Gabbard’s warning to Senate on Syria proves prophetic as Al Qaeda-linked regime slaughters minorities,” by Benjamin Weinthal, Fox News, March 8, 2025:

…An Alawite woman from the region of Al-Ghab plain, where there is a majority Alawite population, told Fox News Digital that the forces said, “Alawites are pigs, and they have to execute all of them and the small children before the elderly people.”

There has been no “genocide in Gaza,” as the maddened antisemites like to claim. But the call by Syrian jihadists to “execute all of them [Alawites] because “Alawites are pigs” sounds to me like a clear call to commit genocide. So far, in two days of slaughter between 1000 and 4000 Alawites, almost all of them civilians, have been killed. Let’s see how many more Alawites — and Christians too, who have been killed in Latakia and Tartous — will be murdered in the next few months as a result of that genocidal impulse.

The witness spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the authorities. She said that two militias had entered her house on Thursday and searched her residence for weapons. One of the members “put a gun to my head and asked for all my money. They took all the money and took money from our neighbors.”

She confirmed reports that the Islamist forces murdered the prominent Alawite 86-year-old cleric Shaaban Mansour and his son Hussein Shaaban. Reuters reported that Mansour was killed on Friday with his son in the village of Sahlab in western Syria. Residents there accused fighters aligned with Damascus of killing them.

A sizable Christian population living in the area has also reportedly been under attack. Greco-Levantines Worldwide media reported that a young family, including their infant child, was killed on Friday.  A father and son, Tony and Fadi Petrus, were also executed by Islamists….

One Alawite, who asked to remain anonymous, and who lives in Europe and is in constant contact with her community in Syria, claimed that in the coastal region and Alawite, more than 4,000 people are estimated to have been killed. She claimed to have received lists of people from Alawites who have documented the mass murder….

In his first comments on the violence, interim President al-Sharaa said that government forces would pursue “remnants” of the ousted Bashar Assad government.

“We will continue to pursue the remnants of the fallen regime. . . . We will bring them to a fair court, and we will continue to restrict weapons to the state, and no loose weapons will remain in Syria,” Sharaa added in a pre-recorded speech.

There appear to have been very few “remnants of the regime” — military men and officials from the Assad period — who have been killed. The victims of these wild revenge killings by the jihadists sent by Damascus to subdue Latakia have overwhelmingly been civilians.

The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, European politicians and diplomats from the former Biden administration have sought to woo Sharaa with sanctions relief and diplomatic relations since December. Critics argue that a former Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorist, Sharaa, can’t simply sport a suit and pretend he has abandoned his terrorist ideology and methods.

Just two days before the slaughter of Alawites, Guterres met with Sharaa on Tuesday in Cairo where they discussed views about a new course for Syria.

While an official statement has yet to come from the U.N. chief, his special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said he was “deeply concerned” by the reports of killings….

No doubt the gullible Guterres thought he could trust the assurances provided to him by Sharaa at their meeting in Cairo about guaranteeing the safety of the minorities in Syria. Days later, his faith shattered by the reports of mass murder of Alawites in Latakia, Guterres has still not appeared in public, unable it seems to forthrightly denounce Sharaa and his regime, though his special envoy for Syria did let the world know that the Secretary-General was “deeply concerned,” but clearly unwilling to blame the new Syrian regime. It seems that the only time Guterrres can express his unambiguous condemnation is when he denounces his favorite target, Israel.