Late this week, government security forces conducted a large arrest campaign in the Masyaf District and southern Hama. Seven former regime militia and intelligence members were detained, including several leading figures of local Tiger Forces units. It was a rare arrest of regime-era criminals in a region that has consistently seen some of the worst inter-communal tensions and violence of the past year.
Early this spring I visited one of the Alawi towns in southern Masyaf, on the edge of the Houla region of western Homs. From here north to Idlib lies an old patchwork of frontlines from the early years of the war, where the Sunni-dominated low-lands meet the Alawi-dominated foothills. The borders of these towns endured dozens of massacres and violations throughout the war, which now fuel retributive violence – often indiscriminate.
Following is a partial transcript of an interview I conducted with an Alawi family in one of these villages along the Houla-Masyaf border. The interviewees included a former conscript and his parents, all of whom were still too afraid to leave their town at the time of the meeting.