Deadly protests and clashes in Syria – what happened and what’s next?

Syria’s coastal regions have experienced a new wave of sectarian upheaval since Bashar al-Assad’s regime was overthrown a year ago.

Unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the al-Anaza police station in the Tartous governorate on Sunday, while Syrian security forces were targeted with gunfire at the al-Azhari roundabout in Latakia.

At least eight people were killed on Friday when an Alawite mosque was bombed in Homs, according to al-Assad’s Alawite minority, which organized the protests. They demand political reforms as well as security guarantees.

Questions are raised about whether the interim government can maintain cohesion in a country that is still rife with sectarian violence after 14 years of civil war have plagued several cities along Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

What do the protests actually mean for Syria’s political and social stability, then?

What caused the protests to begin?

The demonstrations erupted as a result of the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque bombing in Homs’ Wadi al-Dahab neighborhood on Friday.

Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, a little-known organization that claimed the bombing, claimed that it was intended to attack Alawite sect members on its Telegram channel.

Up until the end of al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Syria’s political and security apparatus was dominated by Alawites.

Additionally, Saraya Ansar al-Sunna had claimed responsibility for the at least 20-person suicide bombing of a Damascus church in June.

The mosque attack was deemed the most recent in a line of “desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and cause chaos among the Syrian people,” according to the Syrian government.

Who is organizing the demonstrations?

Ghazal Ghazal, an alawite religious figure who resides outside Syria and is unknown about where he is, called for action in particular to compel the protests.

The Supreme Alawite Islamic Council, which he leads in Syria and other countries, is his main organization.

Political federalism is what we want. We want to control our own destiny, according to Ghazal in a Facebook video message in which the authority is divided between the state and the national government.

Additionally, protesters demanded greater security for the Alawite community, accountability for civilian-caused attacks, and political guarantees.

Alawite protesters and counterprotesters supporting the new government clashed in coastal areas, including the cities and wider governorates of Latakia and Tartous.

Counterprotesters reportedly threw rocks at Alawite demonstrators as a group of protesters whipped a counterprotester outside their area, according to Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Latakia.

After “outlaw groups” attacked civilians and security personnel with the aim of regaining stability, Syria’s Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that army units had moved into these cities’ centers.

Are there any injuries?

According to SANA, the official Syrian news agency, the unrest in Latakia has left four people dead and more than 100 others injured.

According to SANA’s officials, “stabbings, blows from stones, and gunfire that targets both security personnel and civilians” were reported.

One of its security officers was killed in the clashes, according to the Interior Ministry’s report later on Sunday.

Unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the al-Anaza police station, killing two security personnel in Tartous.

The Alawites are who?

The Alawites, which are the second-largest religion in Syria after Sunni Muslims, are a religious minority there.

Alawites make up 10% of Syria’s 23 million people, but al-Assad, who oversaw its affairs from 2000 until he seized control of the country and heavily recruited Alawite soldiers for his army and security apparatus, had a political majority in this country.

Syria has experienced a number of sectarian atrocities since al-Assad’s overthrow. In March, violence broke out in coastal cities like Latakia, Banias, Tartous, and Jableh, and government-allied organizations were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly of Alawite civilians.

Around 1,400 people were killed during a number of days of violence, according to a government committee with the responsibility for the investigation.

Although experts claim that the conflict is rooted in more complex issues than just sectarianism, including historical disputes over land, raged up between Druze and Sunni Bedouin communities in the southern governorate of Suwayda in July. Despite local activists and analysts contending that Israel’s intention was to foster internal unrest, the country’s Ministry of Defense and other targets in Damascus were bombed ostensibly to protect the Druze.

Alawites have also voiced grievances about the detention of young Alawite men without charge and discrimination in hiring in the public sector since al-Assad’s fall.

Will there be peacekeeping on the Syrian government?

Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, has stressed the need for “national unity and domestic harmony.”

Al-Sharaa claimed at the Doha Forum this month that Syria’s residents “simply did not know one another well” as a result of issues the al-Assad regime inherited.

According to Rob Geist Pinfold, a scholar of international security at King’s College London, the country’s persistent sectarian divisions and the central government’s slender authority are generating demands for decentralization from minorities.

Since the fall of al-Assad, the Alawites have been one of the minority’s voices of concern about sectarianism, according to Geist Pinfold.

Despite a March 10 agreement between them that intended for integration, the interim government has yet to integrate regions controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the new government, he continued.

According to experts, mistrust is largely to blame for this.

Alawites and the Druze are examples of minority groups that “implement don’t think the government has their best interests at heart and see the government as a security threat,” according to Geist Pinfold.

“The government has become complicit in this vicious cycle where it doesn’t trust minority groups,” said Syria. He continued, adding that it is unable to use its “oppressive or repressive way” to “intimidate those minority groups” further.

What will follow?

There may be two possible outcomes over the next few days, according to Geist Pinfold.

According to him, “the positive outcome would be that the Syrian government and the SDF come to terms with a tentative agreement that points to a kind of roadmap for a future integration,” he continued, noting that this would ease tensions not only in eastern Syria but also in other parts of the country.

He did warn that if the violence continued, ethnic and sectarian divisions might grow.

Source: Aljazeera