Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Sharaa, called for peace and national unity on Sunday after the country witnessed its worst communal violence since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
The situation quickly spiraled into brutal sectarian violence, with reports of executions, deadly home raids, and indiscriminate attacks on Alawite villages and towns © Mena Today
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Sharaa, called for peace and national unity on Sunday after the country witnessed its worst communal violence since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
The clashes, centered in coastal areas, have left hundreds dead, further deepening the nation’s instability.
"We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace. We can live together," Sharaa said in a video message circulated online, speaking from a mosque in Mazzah, his childhood neighborhood in Damascus.
"Rest assured about Syria. This country has the characteristics for survival. What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges."
The violence erupted last Thursday when fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime launched coordinated attacks and ambushes against security forces linked to Syria’s new Islamist rulers. According to Syrian security sources, at least 200 members of their forces have been killed in the ongoing fighting.
The escalation has triggered revenge attacks, with thousands of armed supporters of Syria’s new Islamist leadership flooding into the coastal region to reinforce the security forces. The situation quickly spiraled into brutal sectarian violence, with reports of executions, deadly home raids, and indiscriminate attacks on Alawite villages and towns.
Government sources have blamed the summary executions of dozens of young men and violent raids on Alawite communities on unruly armed militias who traveled to the region to assist the security forces. These groups have long held resentment toward Assad’s supporters, blaming them for past war crimes and repression.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, described the recent two-day battle in Syria’s Mediterranean coastal region as some of the worst violence in years.
Ongoing Clashes and Rising Tensions
Despite calls for peace, armed confrontations continued overnight, with gunmen targeting security forces and ambushing vehicles on highways leading to key coastal towns, a Syrian security source told Reuters on Sunday.
With the country already facing deep sectarian divisions and growing instability, the latest bloodshed raises serious concerns about Syria’s future under its new leadership. As violence continues to escalate, Ahmed Sharaa’s calls for unity appear to be overshadowed by the grim reality on the ground.
Reporting by Antoine Khoury and Suleiman al-Khalidi
Israel's Defence Ministry said on Sunday it would let Syrian Druze workers enter the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syrian territory, without saying when the government would start issuing permits.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has urged European nations to “stop granting legitimacy” to Syria’s transitional government, following a series of massacres that have claimed hundreds of civilian lives.
The so-called government of Ahmed al-Shaara and his Islamist backers in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is nothing more than a fanatical dictatorship that threatens not only Syria’s future but the stability of the entire region.
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