Syria's de facto president admits Alawite massacres were seen as 'opportunity for revenge'
Ahmad al-Sharaa claimed not to know whether his own security forces were involved in massacres on Syria's coast that have killed hundreds of civilians within days
Syria's de facto President Ahmad al-Sharaa addressed the recent mass killings of Alawite Muslims, saying that such violence threatens national unity, claiming he would hold those responsible accountable during an interview with Reuters, published on 10 March.
“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” he told the news agency from the presidential palace in Damascus.
“We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won't accept that any blood be shed unjustly or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us,” Sharaa claimed.
Sharaa, the former Al-Qaeda commander, gave the interview amid heavy international criticism resulting from the massacre of hundreds of Syrians from the Alawite religious minority over the past four days.
A UK-based war monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said that as of Sunday night, as many as 973 Alawite civilians had been killed in revenge attacks.
Members of Sharaa's security forces and affiliated extremist armed factions rampaged through the Alawite majority towns and villages on Syria's coast, going door to door, killing Alawite families, and looting Alawite and Christian homes.
Many of the killers were foreign extremist fighters from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and China, who Sharaa welcomed into the ranks of the Syrian state's new security forces after he took power in Damascus in December.
Sharaa acknowledged that “many parties entered the Syrian coast, and many violations occurred.”
“It became an opportunity for revenge,” he stated, resulting from the hatred that grew during 14 years of war.
“Sharaa declined to answer whether foreign jihadist fighters and other allied Islamist factions or his own security forces were involved in the mass killings, saying these were matters for the investigation,” Reuters wrote.
However, a local source speaking with The Cradle says it is clear that official Syrian security forces, as well as affiliated armed factions, took part, as social media was flooded with videos showing the killing of unarmed Alawite men and women.
“We've seen videos, and we've seen pictures where there are obviously members of the General Security, or Al-Amin al-Aam, who are involved in the killings. They are in their uniforms. And there are members of the Ministry of Defense who have also been involved in the killings. It's obvious in the videos. The General Security, the ones who wear blue, are shooting at people. We can also see and hear members of other nationalities,” the source stated.
“The shocking thing is that in the videos of the killing we've seen, they are being filmed by themselves, not other people. It's not regular people who are filming them. No, it's them. It is the people who are doing the killing who are filming,” the source added.