<![CDATA[Syria Revisited: Interviews]]>

<![CDATA[Syria Revisited: Interviews]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/s/interviewshttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!f58w!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa001939d-2300-41fb-91ee-12d42335d86b_4032x3024.jpegSyria Revisited: Interviewshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/s/interviewsSubstackSun, 24 May 2026 22:55:57 GMT<![CDATA[Sahel al-Ghab's Ghost Towns]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/sahel-al-ghabs-ghost-townshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/sahel-al-ghabs-ghost-townsFri, 22 May 2026 17:19:55 GMTHama’s Sahel al-Ghab is home to many of Syria’s religious sects, hosting Sunni, Christian, Alawi, and Murshdi villages all closely bordering each other within a fertile farming valley. Each community had naturally developed relationships before 2011, but these ties were largely shattered by the violence of the civil war.

By 2015, the residents of several Sunni villages along what was once the frontline between regime and rebel forces were expelled and their houses razed. Some of the perpetrators had come from bordering Alawi villages where young men had joined regime militias. Displaced residents began to return following the fall of the Assad regime, and with them came a resumption of the inter-communal conflicts started during the war.

I recently visited one of these destroyed villages, Ramleh, and met with a school teacher who returned from the IDP camps in the north in March 2025. The village today is dotted with shattered homes, small new structures, and tents. Most the roadside is empty and overgrown, hiding the foundations of what once were scores of homes.

Ramleh sits just south of a Murshdi village named Rasif and an Alawi town called Aziziyah. Below is an edited transcript of our meeting, discussing the history of Jamleh and complex inter-sect relations with its two neighboring towns, one Alawi and one Murshdi.

]]><![CDATA[A Return to Peace in Talkalakh?]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-return-to-peace-in-talkalakhhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-return-to-peace-in-talkalakhWed, 20 May 2026 20:32:50 GMTThe Talkalakh region of Homs has experienced waves of sectarian violence since the first months of the Syrian revolution. Regime army units, backed by local militias, stormed the city in May 2011, displacing more than 4,000 residents and detaining 1,000 more. To the city’s north, the town of Zara was besieged for more than two years by its neighbors. Zara’s residents were ultimately expelled by force and their homes and land systematically looted.

The fall of Assad opened the door to the return of the region’s displaced Sunni population. With it came vigilante violence and housing and land disputes. The cities of Talkalakh and Zara themselves were severely damaged by regime militias and required extensive repairs, while many young Alawi men fled to Lebanon in fear of arrest or retributive violence.

The security situation improved gradually over the course of 2025. The district is home to nearly every sect in Syria and many communities had long-standing relations. These old networks reformed and cross-communal economic activity recovered. In early February 2026, however, a drive-by shooting in the Alawi village of Ain al-Khadra left two men dead and seven injured. It was the first attack in several months and raised questions about the stability of the area.

I visited Talkalakh in February 2026, observing a civil peace workshop for young people from the city and countryside and meeting with several participants and community leaders. I returned in mid-May 2026 and met with five Alawi professionals from the western countryside as well as two Sunni community leaders. Below is an edited transcript of the May meeting, discussing the current status of inter-communal relations and security in Talkalakh. The responses from participants are combined below each question and there was near universal agreement on each topic.

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]]><![CDATA[Lessons in (in)Stability from Beit Yashout]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/lessons-in-instability-from-beithttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/lessons-in-instability-from-beitSun, 17 May 2026 13:08:33 GMTThe Jableh countryside was once the heart of the regime’s most hardline manpower. Most Alawi men in these villages served in the regime’s forces at one time or another, and many here had joined the March 6, 2025 insurgency. Government forces have consistently conducted anti-insurgent operations in the Daliyah region of rural Jableh, but in the bordering Beit Yashout subdistrict the situation has largely remained calm.

I have previously profiled the somewhat unique relationships that formed between the Ministry of Interior and Beit Yashout’s local leaders and activists, and how these lines of communications were effective in trust building and stability.

Yet these relationships and trust are entirely reliant on the personalities of the local government officials and community leaders; if one changes, the entire system risks collapse. I returned to Beit Yashout on May 7, 2026, to check in on the situation with some community leaders and activists. The following interview covers the significant changes that have occurred over the past three months and underscore the fragility of stability in Syria as well as the impact the current arrest campaign against regime criminals is having in rural Alawi communities.

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]]><![CDATA[Rastan's Complex Post-Assad Transition]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rastans-complex-post-assad-transitionhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rastans-complex-post-assad-transitionSat, 09 May 2026 13:31:24 GMTThe city of Rastan was once the center of opposition activity in northern Homs. The commercial and administrative hub of the norther countryside, Rastan was home to a large number of career soldiers and officers before the war. Most of these men defected between 2011 and 2013, forming a strong core of opposition fighters both in Homs and across the country. Rastan’s revolutionary activity made it one of the earliest targets of Assad regime military operations, beginning with the May 2011 siege of Rastan. Between May 29 and June 2, regime forces indiscriminately shelled the city and executed at least 75 residents while also conducting widespread detention campaigns.

Rastan would be the epicenter of several more battles throughout 2011 and 2012 before the opposition eventually carved out a swathe of liberated territory across the countryside. In May 2018, the Assad regime fully recaptured the city following a multi-year siege and “reconciliation agreement.” Most of the city’s residents fled to Idlib or out of the country at this time. Rastan was not liberated again until the regime’s collapse in December 2024.

The fall of the Assad regime has ushered in a new period of intense transition for Rastan. The city has suffered significant material and economic damage, and pre-war and even war-time social structures have been broken and built anew (Dr. Aymen al-Dassouky has an excellent report on the evolution of local social structures following the regime’s takeover).

Following is a detailed assessment of Rastan’s conditions post-Assad. I have combined two interviews that I conducted in March 2026, one with a former Free Syrian Army commander from Rastan and the other with a former opposition fighter from Talbiseh who now does aid work across northern Homs. The topics include post-Assad social divisions in the city, local actors involved in mediation, and challenges facing the economic and education sectors.

]]><![CDATA[Tishreen’s Military Doctors: Analysis and Interview]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/tishreens-military-doctors-analysishttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/tishreens-military-doctors-analysisWed, 06 May 2026 09:02:46 GMTLast week, old videos showing horrific abuses by regime military doctors against prisoners resurfaced online. The videos fueled an ongoing debate within Syrian society over the role of the regime’s military hospitals within the detention and torture network, and whether justice will be upheld against former doctors found guilty of torturing detainees or covering up their executions. A few days later, the former director of the Latakia Military Hospital was found and arrested in Jableh.

His arrest is just one of a long string of otherwise unannounced arrests targeting former military doctors. This is one of the most contentious files within the already extremely divisive transitional justice topic. Many former military doctors have, since ending their service or since the regime’s fall, opened private civilian practices. The arrests of these men – done without public announcements and often by masked armed security forces – has fueled misinformation within Alawi social media networks of kidnappings against “doctors”. Doctors are almost always framed as civilians, with no mention of their past employment.

There are two commonly understood roles of the military medical sector in the detainment system: senior doctors who signed fake death certificates claiming those murdered under torture or execution died of natural causes, and nurses and lower-level doctors who worked directly inside the prisons. A 2023 investigation by the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Sednaya Prison into the Tishreen Military Hospital provides a detailed looked into the complex web of doctors, nurses, military police and intelligence members involved in abusing and murdering detainees within the hospital. According to the report:

“All the witnesses we met agreed that the medical staff who were allowed to access this place [the Emergency Department] were carefully chosen from regime-loyalists and could be said to be mostly Alawite. Nurses were selected by the chief of nurses in coordination with the security officer and the hospital manager and they are not held to account regarding their treatment of detainees. They exercised all forms of maltreatment including physical beating in front of officers and officials.”

When asked about the military doctors, many Alawis do not understand why they would be targeted for arrest. The intricacies of the Assad-era detention and torture network are more foreign to the Alawi community, compared to Sunnis, and it is difficult for even some anti-Assad Alawis to accept the idea that respected local doctors could have been involved. Even if people know what some doctors did in these hospitals, their relatives and friends who served there would always describe themselves as the exceptions – doctors who treated detainees well and stood up for their rights.

These divergent narratives came to a head in early February 2026, when at least seven former Tishreen doctors were arrested in Damascus, Homs, and Tartous. The rapid arrest of five doctors in Homs city alone caused viral Facebook posts about the “kidnapping” of Alawi doctors. Families of the arrested men often struggle to find information about their whereabouts or the charges against them, further fueling misinformation and fear that these are sect-based kidnappings or arrests.

I asked two Ministry of Interior investigators about these arrests later that month. They confirmed that a list of several hundred people affiliated with the military hospitals had been created throughout 2025, based on documents and witness testimonies, and disseminated to local security offices. This list included men wanted for questioning, and men wanted for crimes with which the government had strong evidence of their involvement. This campaign has clearly increased in intensity throughout the spring.

Last December I met with a former military doctor who worked throughout the war in Tishreen Military Hospital. We spoke among other topics about the treatment of Alawi military doctors after liberation and his perceptions of Tishreen and treating detainees. The doctor was arrested in February. I have edited this interview to remove any potentially identifying information about him. It is particularly interesting to note how he describes the role of Sunni doctors and the perception that they are not being targeted for arrest, and also how his descriptions of Sunni doctors changes throughout the interview.

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]]><![CDATA[Civil Peace in Wadi Nasara]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/civil-peace-in-wadi-nasarahttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/civil-peace-in-wadi-nasaraSun, 22 Mar 2026 20:06:09 GMTDiscussions over the position of Syria’s Christians within the new country have returned following this week’s decision by the Governor of Damascus to restrict the sale of alcohol to Christian neighborhoods. The decision, which has since been paused, triggered widespread criticism. The most nuanced and important critiques came from the Damascene Christian community themselves, who rejected the sectarian lines explicitly drawn by the decision and the reduction of their neighborhoods to, “places for alcohol and nightlife,” as Minister Hind Kabawat wrote.

Syria’s Christians have long adopted a stance of general neutrality throughout the country’s fraught history, largely as a survival mechanism. Most Christian communities were therefore able to avoid significant involvement within the Assad regime’s security apparatus (particularly its militias, unlike other minority groups who became the backbone of the regime’s forces during the war). After the country’s liberation, Christians have asked for little, wanting only for their rights to be conditionally protected and to be kept safe from attacks.

One exception to this trend is the large Christian area of Wadi Nasara in western Homs. This valley contains more than two dozen Christian villages nestled on the northern and eastern sides of a mountain atop which sits the famous Crusader fortress Krak des Chevaliers and Hosn, a Sunni Turkmen town. Hosn and the neighboring Sunni Turkmen town of Zara had risen against the Assad regime early in the war and were quickly besieged. Given its geographic position, the regime used Wadi Nasara to maintain the siege and attack Hosn, including through the establishment of a Christian militia under the National Defense Forces (NDF) umbrella.

There are now decade-old grievances between Hosn and Wadi Nasara as a result of these battles, as outlined in one of my previous pieces:

Last month I visited Wadi Nasara, following a visit to Zara and Hosn in December, and met with a local priest involved in civil peace efforts between the communities. The following is an edited transcript of our meeting. This long interview covers the core problems between Hosn and Wadi Nasara and recent attempts at civil peace dialogues between the two communities, as well as topics on government relations and social issues within the community.

]]><![CDATA["Activate the Local Election": Trust-building in Dreikish]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/activate-the-local-election-trusthttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/activate-the-local-election-trustSat, 14 Mar 2026 13:25:37 GMTTartous’ Dreikish District is a unique region of Syria’s coast. Physically, it is the only region to contain a four-lane highway connecting the district capitol to the governorate capitol. This well-developed infrastructure reflects the unique social fabric of the district. The area was once a tourism hub, known for its lush mountains and forests, but also for a strong art and culture scene and having a higher concentration of academics and writers than elsewhere in the coast. At the same time, many senior regime military officials hail from Dreikish, which is what gave the area the political power to earn such infrastructure.

This unique blend of cultures has driven the area’s experiences since the fall of Assad. The district lost more than 6,000 men during the war fighting under the Assad regime, and thousands more underwent ‘taswiya’ after December 8. Yet the district has the strongest youth civil movements in Tartous and also saw one of the only grass-roots civil peace committees form, with strong, persistent engagement with local security officials since December 2024. This engagement was undermined significantly by the insurgency on March 6, 2025, and has floundered in the year since. See my recent report for a lengthy account of what happened in Dreikish on March 6:

I have visited Dreikish several times over the past year, meeting with youth activists and members of the civil peace committee. Below is an interview I conducted in mid-February 2026 with a former member of the committee. We discuss the security situation, impact of the SDF’s defeat in the northeast, the weakened role of the civil peace committee, the economy, and most importantly, clear steps the government could take to rebuild trust with the Alawi community.

]]><![CDATA[Surging Violence in Homs]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/surging-violence-in-homshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/surging-violence-in-homsFri, 06 Mar 2026 14:50:59 GMTHoms City remains the most complex part of Syria. The city and its surrounding countryside contain communities from nearly every one of Syria’s various ethnic and religious sects, which the Assad regime quickly exploited when the revolution broke out in 2011. Regime officials mobilized Alawi youth across the region to assist in its crackdown against anti-regime communities. Sunni communities in the city and its countryside endured numerous massacres and ethnic cleansings over the course of the war.

The fall of Assad and return of many displaced Sunnis opened the door to new waves of revenge campaigns, fueled by a lack of transitional justice and local civil peace initiatives to address the history of violence in the area. As a result, Homs city has seen regular sectarian and targeted violence against minorities. This violence has ebbed and flowed over the past year, with several extended periods of significantly reduced violence in the city. However, the past two months have seen some of the worst bouts of killings and security chaos since the fall of the regime.

I met with several local activists in the city in mid-February to discuss the situation. One noticeable new trend is the concentration of killings in Akrama neighborhood, a mixed-sect commercial area in southern Homs surrounded by several very poor Alawi and Sunni neighborhoods. Below is an edited transcript of an interview I conducted with an Alawi dentist and his daughter who live in Akrama. I previously published an interview with them in December in which we covered the history of the neighborhood and the need for targeted civil peace initiatives. In this interview we discuss the root causes of Homs’ violence and impact of the violence on Alawi communities, particularly in pushing some to sell their homes and leave the city.

A house in Karm al-Louz neighborhood still bears the graffiti of regime forces. The eastern edge of Karm al-Louz, which sits between Akrama and Karm Zeitoun, remains largely empty of its residents ever since the regime’s military campaign in 2012.

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]]><![CDATA[A Precarious Calm in Baniyas]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-precarious-calm-in-baniyashttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-precarious-calm-in-baniyasMon, 23 Feb 2026 17:10:51 GMTBaniyas remains one of the most complex and tense regions of Syria’s coast, if not all of western Syria. Yet in recent months the overt tensions in the city have receded. This seems to be a continuation of the “facade” some local activists described to me in November.

Yet the sense of calm that has come over Baniyas is part of a wider change across all Alawi regions of western Syria, and a facade of calm that lasts for more than four months has the potential of solidifying into something more substantial. Yet the lack of any serious civil peace or inter-communal efforts in the city risks throwing away the current opportunity.

In this two-part interview, I speak with the same Christian and pro-revolution Alawi activists that I have profiled several times before. Speaking regularly with these men provides a unique insight into changing perceptions from the same people who are centrally placed within their respective communities. We discuss the nuances of the coast’s “return to life”, the challenges of pursuing civil peace in Baniyas, and the role of Fadi Saqr and Ghazal Ghazal in Tartous.

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]]><![CDATA[Rural Baniyas in the Shadow of March 6]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rural-baniyas-in-the-shadow-of-marchhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/rural-baniyas-in-the-shadow-of-marchFri, 20 Feb 2026 16:15:18 GMTSecurity has improved significantly across the Syria in recent months, especially in Alawi regions, and many locals have expressed increased trust in the Ministry of Interior. Yet the massacres on March 6 by pro-government forces remain unaddressed. Communities which endured mass killings have ‘returned to life’ so-to-speak, but out of an economic and social necessity, not because of any resolution to their suffering. How do these communities view the current situation and the state’s security forces one year later?

I visited one such place, Harisoun, earlier this week. It is a small town north of Baniyas and close to rural Jableh (there is another “Harisoun” marked on google south of Baniyas, but this is not where the town actually is). It, like most of the Baniyas countryside, is dominated by greenhouse farming. I met with an engineer who runs several nurseries in the area. Our interview covers the massacre on March 8, how locals view security forces in the year since, and a detailed discussion of the agricultural industry, challenges farmers are facing, and what type of support could help the local economy.

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]]><![CDATA[Unfinished Civil Peace in Northern Homs]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/unfinished-civil-peace-in-northernhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/unfinished-civil-peace-in-northernWed, 18 Feb 2026 16:56:36 GMTForty minutes northeast of Homs city sits the town of Mushrefa, a mixed-sect town in the middle of a diverse region. It served for years as a key regime base, using both Alawi locals recruited into militias as well as a military base adjacent to the town to help besiege northern Homs. During the final days of the regime, advancing opposition forces fought a brief but bloody battle at this base as they advanced south along the highway from Salamiyah. Mushrefa, a mixed town of Alawis, Christians, and Sunnis, has since led a quiet existence amid the chaotic events witnessed in other minority regions of Homs after the fall of Assad.

The town is close to the opposition bastion of Talbiseh, and the two communities have a long history of economic and personal ties. Since the fall of Assad, Sunnis from Talbiseh have reopened shops in Mushrefa, and security forces have succeeded in building a good degree of trust with locals. My recent interview transcript with one such business owner in Talbiseh explores these inter-communal dynamics from that city’s perspective.

Yet while there is no overt inter-sect conflict in Mushrefa, there have been no initiatives designed to repair the more subtle war-time divides between sects, particularly the problems created by the actions of Alawi militiamen against Christian and Sunni residents of the town. The lack of any transitional justice efforts whatsoever, combined with the absence of any inter- or intra-communal dialogues, have prevented the town and surrounding areas from fully healing the scars left by the regime.

Central Mushrefa during my first visit in December 17, 2024.

I visited Mushrefa earlier this month to learn about inter-faith relations and the town’s history after the fall of Assad. The following is an edited interview with a retired Christian engineer who works in one of the town’s churches.

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]]><![CDATA[Talbiseh's Rebirth After Assad]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/talbisehs-rebirth-after-assadhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/talbisehs-rebirth-after-assadSat, 14 Feb 2026 15:02:52 GMTThe northern countryside of Homs is famous for its role in the Syrian revolution and the regime’s brutal response. The cities of Rastan and Talbiseh in particular were early sites of protests and regime massacres, including one of the regime’s earliest major military operations in September 2011. Talbiseh, which sits along the M5 Highway just 20 minutes north of Homs City, spent more than 5 years as the southernmost point of opposition control in what became the northern Homs pocket. While opposition factions were largely defeated within the city of Homs by 2014, Talbiseh and this pocket would remain until mid-2018 when a Russian-brokered deal saw the regime take control.

While a bedrock of the opposition, this area also contains many non-Sunni communities from nearly every sect. The two closest towns to Talbiseh, for example, are majority Christian and Alawi. To the east is Mushrefa, a mixed Christian, Alawi, and Sunni town which saw a gradual exodus of Christians throughout the war due to the violence and harassment from local regime fighters. Umm Sharshuh to the west was a Christian town, destroyed through regime looting and airstrikes. Enab Baladi profiled Umm Sharshuh in 2020, detailing its takeover by regime militiamen from local Alawi villages, the eviction of its residents, looting of their homes, and later regime airstrikes which destroyed the town entirely.

These three towns have a long history of integration dating back decades. Their personal and economic relationships were strained through the war, but never fully disappeared. They now serve as the foundation of renewed inter-communal ties as the region rebuilds. I visited Talbiseh, Umm Sharshuh, and Mushrefa earlier this week to learn about their history, interfaith relations, and life after Assad. Below is an edited interview with a businessman from Talbiseh who works in Mushrefa and whose family has ties to all three towns. He had moved to Turkey briefly late in the war but returned to Talbiseh in 2022 and remained in the town through its liberation.

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]]><![CDATA[Nuanced Sectarianism in Homs]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/nuanced-sectarianism-in-homshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/nuanced-sectarianism-in-homsSat, 20 Dec 2025 18:37:33 GMTEarlier this month I met with a dentist and his daughter, both Alawi activists, living in Akrama. I had previously met them in May in rural Tartous when I had hosted a dialogue session between activists from Ismaili, Alawi, and Christian communities. Throughout the session the two of them brought a uniquely different perspective to the discussion compared to the Tartousi Alawis.

This pattern is something I have increasingly noticed in my work with activists in the coast and in Homs. Homs’ complex sectarian fabric and relationships is clearly reflected in the way its Alawi community views Syria’s current challenges. Rather than the “violent landscape of sectarian killings” that some observers have claimed, these locals describe a much more complex city in which geography and history plays just as, if not a more important, role than sect. As the dentist explained when reacting to the above article, “Bad things are happening but it is not as described as a landscape of violence. This speech is very extreme. Life is not as miserable as they describe it. It might not be that happy but it is going on.”

Our conversation began with the current conditions of Akrama neighborhood before turning to other neighborhoods in the city, highlighting the role of poverty in fueling violent crime. These neighborhood-level assessments are an important first step in understanding the complexities of violence and sectarianism in the city, and the reflections here should be compared with others I have written on Abbassiyah and Zahraa neighborhoods. We also discuss the perceptions of the General Security forces and the lack of NGO support for social cohesion activities in the city. An edited version of the interview can be found below.

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]]><![CDATA[A Tumultuous Year of Freedom in Sabburah]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-tumultuous-year-of-freedom-in-sabburahhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/a-tumultuous-year-of-freedom-in-sabburahThu, 11 Dec 2025 15:53:13 GMTThere are few regions in Syria as complex as Salamiyah. The city and surrounding countryside contain nearly every religious sect in the country, the area has a long history of anti-Assad activism beginning with Ismaili and Alawi communists in the 1980s and extending to huge protests in 2011. Yet the regime was able to mobilize shabiha and later local militias to support a military crackdown on the city and the Bedouin villages in the rural eastern regions. This regime occupation ended with the city’s peaceful handover to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham on December 5, 2024.

The Alawi town of Sabburah sits 20 minutes northeast of Salamiyah. Like Salamiyah, Sabburah has a complex history. It was the center of the regime’s militia mobilization against protestors in 2011 and 2012, but was also the home of nearly 50 communist political prisoners during the era of Hafez and Bashar. I visited Sabburah in and met with a small group of former political detainees who had formed a local council in the months after Assad to lead the town. At the time, their efforts were focused on outreach to the neighboring Bedouin community - who Alawi militiamen from Sabburah had attacked throughout the war - and building ties to the new government.

Two weeks after I left, the March 6 coastal insurgency erupted. As pro-government armed units flooded the coast, so to did General Security units and armed Bedouin enter Sabburah.

I recently returned to the town to meet with the new mayor, Karim Akari, one of those political detainees who had formed the post-Assad council, and discuss with him life in Sabburah since March 6. He provides an extremely nuanced perspective of security and intercommunal relations in one of Syria’s most complex regions. Below is an edited transcript of this interview.

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]]><![CDATA[Standing Alone in Jableh's Countryside]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/standing-alone-in-jablehs-countrysidehttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/standing-alone-in-jablehs-countrysideThu, 04 Dec 2025 18:33:24 GMTThe Jableh countryside has had a tumultuous history since the fall of Assad one year ago. It has been the heart of the pro-Assad insurgency dating back to December 2024, and also suffered the worst of the anti-Alawi massacres committed by pro-government armed groups beginning in March.

One town in particularly gained infamy on March 6 as the starting point of the coastal uprising which triggered that massacre: Daliyah. On the evening of March 6, a General Security convoy arrived to conduct an arrest of a local man. The man refused to cooperate and an argument broke out. While arguing, a group of insurgents ambushed the security forces, killing them. A second security vehicle was then ambushed further down the road. Within an hour General Security and army units had come under attack across nearly all of Latakia and Tartous.

Daliyah itself did not suffer any massacres in the aftermath, as happened in other Alawi villages closer to the main coastal highway in the ensuing days. But on June 5 a dispute between dismissed employees and the manager of the town’s post office turned physical and a General Security and military convoy was dispatched to the town. These forces ended up killing three random men and looting several shops by the end of the day.

Throughout all of these events, a small network of media activists attempt to keep the peace in this area. They operate Facebook pages for their respective areas through which they try to counter fake news and share accurate updates about the security situation in the Jableh countryside. They do this through regular contact with locals, town mayors, and regional Ministry of Interior officials. These officials reached out to the men after seeing the good work their pages are doing and now see them as a valuable tool for trust building.

Still, these media activists see themselves as a third party to the conflict in the coast. On the one side is the government, on the other is the pro-Assad Alawites. The media activists stand in the middle, highly critical of both, supporting neither, simply trying to do what they can to support their towns. Their work is similar in fashion to that of the mayor of Beit Yashout, who I met and profiled in September, though these activists hold no official position.

Earlier this week I met with two of these men in Daliyah to learn about the conditions of the town and perspectives of the local community towards their media work and the new government.

Below is an edited version of this interview.

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]]><![CDATA["Anything is Possible," except in Baniyas?]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/anything-is-possible-except-in-baniyashttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/anything-is-possible-except-in-baniyasTue, 25 Nov 2025 10:58:45 GMTI visited Baniyas last week, my fifth visit since the fall of Assad, to meet with some activists I have come to know over the past year. Last week I published a partial transcript of one of these interview with a group older Alawi men, long-time anti-Assad leftist political activists, who discussed their view of the social and political challenges in Baniyas after the March 6 massacres.

Later that day I met with a Christian activist, the same man who I interviewed for my report on the insurgency and massacres in the city in March. You may recall in that report how this man, “S”, was highly critical of both the Alawi insurgents and the state-backed forces that responded.

What follows is a partial transcript of my most recent interview with “S”, discussing many of the same topics as I discussed with the Alawi men that same day as well as a deeper examination of the bifurcated Sunni urban and rural community. “S” provides some important push back and critiques of the other men’s perspectives, while also confirming much of their critics of the local government. I highly encourage readers to read both interviews together to get more accurate view both of the current conditions in Baniyas and of the complexities of drawing full pictures from only some perspectives.

]]><![CDATA[Reflections of Baniyas Activists]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/reflections-of-baniyas-activistshttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/reflections-of-baniyas-activistsWed, 19 Nov 2025 05:20:48 GMTThe security situation across most Alawi parts of Syria continues to improve since the coastal massacres on March 6, largely a result of continued professionalization and centralization of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense. However, social and political dynamics are much more varied. In Tartous, it is the mixed-sect city of Baniyas where social and political life remains at a near stand-still - and in some ways continues to worsen.

On a recent visited to the city I met with six Alawi activists. All are from Qusour Neighborhood, survivors of the massacre there which left more than 200 Alawi civilians dead between March 7 and 8. I have met regularly with one of these men, “J”, a well-known revolutionary activist from the city who helped organize some of the first anti-Assad protests here in 2011. You can read his description of the March massacre here:

On each subsequent visit since May, J has described a gradual return to life in the city. The question now is whether this gradual normalization reflects genuine social improvements and healing after the massacres, or if it is simply out of necessity, as people cannot live hiding in their homes forever.

On this visit, the six men discussed with me the current situation in the city, the challenges facing inter-faith dialogue and the absence of local government engagement with civil society. Each man presented a differing perspective on the challenges faced and path forward, with an interesting divergence of opinions on whether to prioritize reforms within the Alawi sect or inter-faith issues first.

]]><![CDATA[Lagging Civil Peace in Aleppo]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/lagging-civil-peace-in-aleppohttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/lagging-civil-peace-in-aleppoWed, 22 Oct 2025 17:43:16 GMTPost-Assad civil peace efforts vary drastically across Syria, heavily dependent on the attitudes and personalities of local activists and local officials. Many of the positive steps made on this file have come as a reaction to serious local problems, rather than as a coherent, structured plan to resolve tensions and prevent violence before it occurs.

Aleppo City has largely avoided the media spotlight given to the violent inter-communal clashes that have plagued parts of the coast and western Homs and Hama. The city’s most significant source of insecurity stems from ongoing vigilante killings, though these almost exclusively target Sunni ex-regime criminals.

Still, the absence of more serious intercommunal violence does not mean there are not serious social tensions within the city. I spoke with an activist from Aleppo earlier this month about what mechanisms, if any, exist in Aleppo to deal with disputes and address more structural civil peace problems. This man is a veteran of the Aleppo civil peace scene and has previously organized inter-faith dialogues and trainings across western Syria. He addresses several important topics, but the key takeaway is this: There is a stark difference between resolving disputes and building genuine civil peace, and there is little work being done on the latter.

]]><![CDATA[Holding the Peace in Beit Yashout]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/holding-the-peace-in-beit-yashouthttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/holding-the-peace-in-beit-yashoutFri, 10 Oct 2025 13:31:04 GMTThe conditions and experiences of Alawi communities post-Assad have been far from universal. While if you were to ask any random Alawi in a rural area if he felt safe or fearful he would almost certainly answer with the later, the reasons for this are not the same. Some communities have suffered from massacres, frequent kidnappings, or random sectarian- and revenge-motivated killings. But most Alawi communities have largely been spared these crimes. Here, fear is fed from watching what is happening, or claimed to be happening online, in other Alawi areas.

In these largely safe communities, certain local figures and local security officials play central roles in maintaining these conditions. This often requires both a proactive and cooperation security official and a local Alawi figure willing to assert themselves to this new government. One such figure is the mayor of Beit Yashout, Maher Ibrahim. I spent the day with him in mid-September, discussing his role as intermediary, how the new government has dealt with his town and the surrounding areas, and what happened in Beit Yashout on March 6.

]]><![CDATA[Idlib's Christians Between Safety and Oppression: Interview]]>https://www.syriarevisited.com/p/idlibs-christians-between-safetyhttps://www.syriarevisited.com/p/idlibs-christians-between-safetyTue, 12 Aug 2025 14:01:25 GMTIdlib’s Christian community has lived outside the control of Assad since their villages were liberated by local opposition factions in late 2012. Yet this freedom soon came with its own challenges: criminal gangs and abusive armed groups robbed and kidnapped Christians, while many Syrian and foreign fighters seized their homes and farmland. These villages then endured a brief period of ISIS rule followed by years of rule under a mix of armed factions including Jabhat al-Nusra. Finally, with the formation of the Syrian Salvation Government in 2018 and Nusra’s transformation into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Ahmed al-Shara’a and his chief religious advisor Sheikh Abdul Rahman Atoun began engaging with the remaining Christian families in northwest Idlib.

These meetings focused on addressing the years of violations against the community - from Free Syrian Army groups, ISIS, and Nusra itself. Gradually, between 2019 and 2023 most of the stolen homes and farmland were returned to their owners or Christian caretakers, security improved, and some public religious rites were allowed again.

The fall of Assad and HTS’s takeover of the entire country has brought renewed focus on the status of Christians under the rule of what was once a hardcore Islamist insurgent group. However, the experiences of Christian communities across Syria are extremely varied, as are the community’s opinions on the new government.

St Joseph’s Church in Qunaya. Photo Credit Nick Waters

In July, I visited the three Christian villages north of Jisr Shoughur in Idlib’s countryside. I had previously visited these villages in 2022 when I met with the local priests and HTS officials to discuss their ongoing dialogues. The dialogues were led by Abu Hanna Jalouf, then the head priest for the area but who now serves as the Bishop of Aleppo. In this latest visit I met with an older local woman in the village of Jdayda. One of the most interesting parts of our discussion was the distinction she drew between feelings of security despite the cultural oppression imposed by their neighbors. Below is a edited transcript of our interview, discussing the unique conditions of Christians in this forgotten area.

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