“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” said Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement.
More than 1,000 people have been reported killed after clashes broke out March 6 between forces loyal to ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and security forces of the interim government of president Ahmed al-Sharaa. Sharaa was the head of the al-Qaida-linked Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, that led the offensive overthrowing Assad in December.
After the clashes, revenge killings took place by forces affiliated with the government, targeting minority religious communities. Some 745 civilians were massacred, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory said the two days of violence following the clashes were among the deadliest since the start of Syria’s civil war 14 years ago.
A majority of the civilians targeted and killed were from the Alawite community, a sect of Shiite Islam to which Assad belonged, and which comprises 10 percent of Syria’s population. In towns and cities, including Latakia and Tartous, men, women and children were reportedly massacred indiscriminately. Christians, including clergy, were also murdered. Prior to the civil war and the rise of the Islamic State in Syria, Christians, with a 2000-year history in the country, also made up 10 percent of the population. Their numbers have fallen to under 3 percent.
When he seized power in December, Interim Syrian President Sharaa pledged to protect Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities. The horror that took place in western Syria at the hands of Islamist forces linked to his government makes the pledge seem tragically hollow. On March 9, Sharaa promised to set up an independent committee to “investigate the violations against civilians and identify those responsible for them.”
Secretary of State Rubio said, “The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
