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Members of security forces loyal to the interim government, in Syria’s western city of Latakia, March 2025.
By Dr. Muhammad Sabir Kareem:
There is no doubt that the current transitional authority in Syria, along with its affiliated organization, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, represent jihadist ideologies. It is clear that these jihadist forces do not believe in the rights of other groups, particularly those with differing ideologies, doctrines, or ethnic identities. Based on this, we must carefully analyze the current situation in Syria—especially in light of the events recently reported in Al-Sahel (6–8 March 2025), where, according to multiple sources such as the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and several political analysis institutes, a massacre targeting the Alawite minority group took place.
The massacre in Al-Sahel was a tragic event that caused significant international reaction. Many Western leaders called upon the Syrian government in Damascus to intervene immediately to initiate a serious investigation. While the Damascus authority initially promised to launch an investigation and declared its commitment to transparency, after a month no findings or official statements have yet been made. New reports indicate another wave of sectarian violence, this time targeting the Druze minority, occurring on April 29, 2025 in Jaramana, a town near the capital, followed by another attack in Sahnaya involving Syrian security forces supported by allied Islamic armed groups in which over 100 people have been reported killed.
These events illustrate that religiously motivated political forces differ fundamentally from those that believe in dialogue and democratic methods. The current transitional authority in Damascus is rooted in an extremist ideology and cannot be expected to establish a political system based on democracy and human rights. This view is reinforced by a number of events. Since 8 December 2024, when Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham effectively took power in Syria, the group failed to implement key provisions of its own constitutional declaration issued on 13 March 2025, particularly the article prohibiting all non-state armed groups. These failures, along with evidence of recent sectarian attacks, confirm that armed jihadist groups are leading the assaults against both Alawite and Druze communities.
Finally, it can be concluded that the continued presence of jihadist forces in power, directly or indirectly, will lead to further instability, mass violence, and crimes against humanity. This threat extends to other vulnerable components of Syrian society, including the Kurdish population in northeastern Syria, commonly referred to as Rojava (Self-Administration). The new authority in Damascus perceives Rojava as a major obstacle to its control over the future of the Syrian state.
