'You started this': Attacks on Alawites in Syria highlight deep divisions

The recent surge of violence in Syria lays bare the challenges interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in delivering on his promise to lead a more unified country.

Standing beside the bodies of two men lying on the ground, blood pooling around one of them, in the Syrian village of Qabo Al-Awamiya in the Latakia countryside, a woman shouts in despair: “God won’t forgive you.”

“Are those your sons? God won’t forgive you,” one of the men she’s speaking to, who is out of frame and appears to be holding the camera, responds. “You started it,” he says, as he issues a chilling threat: “I swear, we’re going to crush every Alawite.”

The exact circumstances surrounding the footage were not immediately clear. But it is one of more than 15 videos geolocated and verified by NBC News capturing the deadly violence that unfolded in Syria last week after fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime attacked government forces on March 6, setting off a wave of revenge killings largely targeting the Alawite community, the small Islamic sect to which the Assad family belongs.

In one video, an armed man can be seen pummeling and taunting another man, before setting him free only to shoot him as he runs away; in another, men are forced to crawl on their hands and knees before being shot. In several others, bodies can be seen amassed on streets and in mass graves in areas across Latakia, a former stronghold of ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

A sweeping response from security forces has stabilized the violence, but imagery has laid bare the deep divisions coursing through Syrian society after more than a decade of civil war, with the deadly attacks highlighting the colossal challenge the country’s interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, faces in his bid to fulfill his vow to lead a more unified and inclusive Syria.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/syria-deadly-violence-alawites-assad-ahmed-al-sharaa-rcna196707

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