In the Alawite stronghold of the Assad clan, in western Syria, members of this minority welcome its fall, but fear marginalization, or worse, reprisals, with the coming to power of a rebel coalition led by the Islamists.
At the end of a dazzling offensive which allowed it to seize a large part of the country, this alliance led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took Damascus on December 8.
It thus marked the end of the reign of President Bashar al-Assad, who posed as protector of minorities in the country with a Sunni Muslim majority.
“Many people like me are worried because those who liberated us (…) include factions that have a dark history,” an Alawite student from the coastal town of Latakia told AFP by telephone. requires anonymity.
“The Alawites were very close to the Bashar regime”, who came from this minority, a branch of Shiite Islam, and of which they constituted the “praetorian guard”, explains political scientist Fabrice Balanche, author of the work “Les lessons from the Syrian crisis.
He estimates their number at 1.7 million today, or around 9% of the population.
According to Mr. Balanche, “their association with the regime risks provoking collective vengeance against them. Especially since they are considered heretics by the Islamists.”
In a joint statement, religious leaders of the Alawite community called for a general amnesty for all Syrians and guarantees for the safe return of the displaced.
While the Alawite student’s Sunni friends share messages of unity online, the young woman says she is concerned by many hateful comments.
“I read: + Your turn will come + or + We are going to kill you +”, she says, claiming to sense “a lot of community tensions”.
Her sister and brother-in-law are even thinking of leaving the country, she says.
HTS comes from the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, the Al-Nusra Front, from which it separated in 2016, which had carried out deadly attacks against the Alawites at the start of the civil war in Syria.
The advance of the rebels from northern Syria has pushed many Alawites, particularly in the city of Homs (center) where they are based, to flee to the coastal region of Latakia and Tartous, the heart of their community.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) has reported several incidents of violence by rebel fighters in this coastal region since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, particularly against civilians.
Faced with these concerns, the new power dominated by HTS affirmed that its government “will guarantee the rights of all peoples and faiths”.
But the fall of the deposed president also provoked demonstrations of joy within his community, and statues of Hafez al-Assad, his father and predecessor, were torn down in Latakia and Tartous.
The student explains that among her Alawite friends, most “could not support” the Assad clan, which exercised unchallenged power for half a century, “because it was stealing from us, monopolizing the country’s wealth.”
“They forced us to live in poverty, without electricity or running water, while prices skyrocketed,” she says.
The small Alawite community, over-represented within the armed forces, has also paid a heavy price in the conflict triggered in 2011 by the repression of a pro-democracy uprising.
“One in three men between 20 and 45 years old died” during the conflict, explains Mr. Balanche.
The day Assad fell, “I felt a mixture of fear and joy,” recalls a forty-year-old teacher from Jableh, a town neighboring Latakia.
He says some of the rebel fighters who entered Jableh after Assad’s fall asked a store to stop selling alcohol, while others had a gym remove a poster showing a woman exercising. exercise.
“We are open to collaborating with any party, and we want a rule of law (…) but we are worried about the arrival of an Islamic regime,” he said, reached by telephone, to AFP.
