Syria: West’s ‘good’ jihadists slaughter innocents

Since December, when the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept to power in Damascus, European diplomats and Arab leaders have been meeting the now besuited ex-ISIS, ex-Al Qaeda commander al-Jolani in order to launder the new regime’s image, with the help of the press. Now we see the real face of their friends in Damascus. Since Friday, fighters loyal to the al-Jolani regime have swept through coastal villages, towns and cities, carrying out a pogrom that has left over 1,200 Alawite civilians dead so far; men, women and children killed for being Alawites.

What we’ve seen ongoing since Friday is an atrocious pogrom conducted by HTS forces. Those responsible are the western imperialists, and their reactionary friends in Turkey, Israel and the Gulf states.

Their interventions, their funding, their arms, raised these cutthroats to power. Thanks to them, Syria is now on the brink of descending into a bestial cycle of sectarian violence, and a new, bloodier civil war. Without waiting for the blood to dry, the criminals in the West are trampling the truth of what has happened in order to cover up their crimes, and to prepare their next steps.

An indiscriminate pogrom

On Thursday, clashes erupted in north west Syria between armed Alawite militias and fighters loyal to the HTS regime. The regime and its backers are referring to the former as ‘pro-Assad loyalists’. This was echoed by an EU statement depicting the HTS killers as the injured party and ‘remnants’ of the regime as the guilty party!

“The European Union strongly condemns the recent attacks, reportedly by pro-Assad elements, on interim government forces in the coastal areas of Syria and all violence against civilians.”

The fact that many Alawites – who make up 10 percent of Syria’s population, concentrated along the coastline – have held onto their weapons since the fall of Assad should surprise precisely no one. Anyone from a minority religious or ethnic group in Syria today who values their life and possesses weapons would be insane to give them up.

On Thursday, clashes erupted in north west Syria between armed Alawite militias and fighters loyal to the HTS regime / Image: fair use

After the clashes in the coastal areas, al-Jolani announced a ‘combing operation’ in the urban areas and sent in more HTS fighters. According to Le Monde, this call was joined by other calls, this time from Salafist mosques pressing for a jihad. By Friday, thousands of armed jihadis had descended on the coastal area, including many foreign fighters, identifiable by the fact that they only spoke in classical Arabic.

Over the next 72 hours, these gangs slaughtered Alawites indiscriminately. Bloodied bodies were piled up along roadsides. Jihadis went from house to house, stealing gold, cars and anything they could loot, and then executing entire families. Homes were burned down. Families tried to hide in silent terror in basements, or fled to rooftops where they were murdered. Videos emerged of Alawite men being forced to crawl on the ground and bark like dogs before being shot. 

But throughout this slaughter, the western press has seen fit to reminds us, over and over again, that the Alawites are the sect to which Assad belongs. The BBC baselessly asserts that these are “areas loyal to ousted former leader Bashar al-Assad”. The implication, from the BBC and others, is that this is no pogrom at all but merely “revenge killings” (these are the BBC’s exact words) of a political nature aimed at supporters of the old regime.

This is a despicable lie. The jihadi groups indiscriminately killed anyone from an Alawite background, including Alawites who spent years serving sentences in Assad’s jails for opposing his regime. In numerous videos circulating on social media over the past few days, HTS fighters have been quite clear who they are killing and why: they are killing Alawites, who in their view are apostates.

As ‘interim president’ al-Jolani himself put it in 2015, when he was the official head of Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate, the Alawites “moved outside the religion of God and of Islam”, and their only hope of staying alive would be to “return to Islam”.

‘Interim government forces’ and ‘violent factions’

2015 was a long time ago, of course, and al-Jolani has since (formally) cut links between his group and Al Qaeda.

Since HTS captured Damascus back in December, the Europeans have been quick to extend the hand of friendship and open diplomatic relations. There have been a flurry of high-level meetings between al-Jolani and European counterparts.

Indeed, just two days before the bloodletting began, European Commission president Costa sat, all smiles, next to al-Jolani himself. Without a hint of irony, he gave him the bloc’s glowing endorsement: “The EU is fully engaged in supporting the democratic, (!) peaceful (!!) and inclusive (!!!) transition in Syria”. This followed just a few weeks on from a decision by the EU to relax sanctions on Syria.

The Europeans are, of course, looking for something from al-Jolani. What might that be? A number of European countries have stopped processing Syrian asylum applications since the fall of Assad, and Austria has even begun processing Syrian refugees for deportation to jihadist-run Syria. They want a clear out of the one million Syrian refugees who have lived in Europe since the West destroyed their country.

The fact is, this is just Al Qaeda in power by another name, with a besuited figurehead who must be a source of bemusement and irritation to a good section of the jihadist ranks / Image: Foreign Ministery of Oman, Wikimedia Commons

And with such “democratic”, “peaceful”, “inclusive” jihadists in power back home, why should they not return?

We repeat, western imperialism is responsible for the present mayhem. They funded and armed the jihadist groups now swarming Syria. But they always disguised their cynical support for this medieval barbarism with the carefully cultivated fiction that there was a distinction between what they called the ‘moderate rebels’ and the more ‘fanatical’ types like Al Qaeda and ISIS; and now, we are told, we must make a distinction between what HTS is now and what it was not so long ago.

In the bloodletting since Thursday, much of the western press has been at pains to maintain the lie that there is some distinction between the ‘good’ Islamists that they smile and issue statements alongside, and the ‘bad’ ones who conduct pogroms. This wasn’t so much the action of ‘government security forces’, they say, but the unfortunate independent initiative of ‘violent factions’.

But all the videos show that those carrying out the slaughter were dressed in government uniforms. There were even cases of tanks being used to fire shells directly at civilian homes. These ‘violent factions’ are part of the army, of HTS, and of the ecosystem of armed jihadists groups that make up the forces upon which the present regime stands.

Al-Jolani has since announced a “full investigation” into the killings – he really has learned all the phrases that a respectable politician must learn! The results of this ‘combing operation’ have been bad for PR and bad for diplomacy. It is probable that al-Jolani did not intend to unleash a pogrom when he sent jihadi attack dogs into Alawite areas. But he is not in full control.

The fact is, this is just Al Qaeda in power by another name, with a besuited figurehead who must be a source of bemusement and irritation to a good section of the jihadist ranks, who do what they want anyway.

What next?

Beyond what he would call the “excesses” of the campaign, al-Jolani and the regime are very happy with the results of the operation on the west coast. But what are those results? After roughly 250 fighters were killed on both sides, the Alawite militias have allegedly been cleared from the urban areas – along with 100,000 civilians. The majority will have gone into hiding in mountainous terrain and dense forest along the coastline.

They will not give up fighting, and many more will have been convinced that, to survive, it is necessary to take up arms. Far from pacifying the region, it is likely to spur the growth of ethnic militias in the coastal areas and beyond. Civil war is looming.

Around this bloody mess stand the imperialists with their knives sharpened to carve up Syria, and another conflict threatens to turn Syria into a theater of war, butchery and partition: that between Turkey and Israel.

We have seen the rank hypocrisy of the Europeans – the lovely liberal, humanitarian Europeans – who have ceaselessly flirted with al-Jolani since he took power. But the main power behind Damascus now is Erdogan in Turkey.

For years, he has played a careful game. He has balanced between Russia and the United States in order to push his interests. These, above all, involve projecting Turkish power and influence over its border into Syria, using the likes of HTS as proxies.

In December, the Biden Administration was almost certainly aware of the offensive, and whether or not it approved of it, it at least did not intervene to stop it. Indeed, immediately before HTS’ offensive, one Free Syrian Army commander recalls being told by British and American intelligence: “Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.”

Around this bloody mess stand the imperialists with their knives sharpened to carve up Syria / Image: fair use

With Trump in power, however, the US is striking a very different tone to the Europeans, condemning “the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” adding that they stand “with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities”. For his part, Trump wants nothing more than to get out of Syria.

The Israelis too have come out as defenders of the Alawite population. Imagine that, Israel is protesting against ethnic cleansing!

This is rank hypocrisy of the first order. Israel’s genocide in Gaza, backed by the US – which distracted and weakened Assad’s main backers, Iran and Hezbollah – was the immediate cause of the downfall of the Assad regime. The war created favourable conditions for HTS, which was then able to kick in the door of the Assad regime, which had become internally rotten. Israeli imperialism, by its actions, is also culpable for the fate now facing the Alawites.

In fact, Israel is just using rhetoric about ‘defending ethnic minorities’ to conduct a land grab in southern Syria, where it has occupied territory beyond the Golan Heights, under the pretext that they are there to ‘protect’ the Druze. Recent moves by the Israeli regime have also included allowing Syrian Druze to cross the border to work inside Israel, which itself has a Druze population in the north of the country.

It would seem that a deal has been struck between Israel and the United States over Syria that would allow the Israelis to remain there indefinitely, possibly as a sop to Netanyahu after Trump forced the Israelis to accept a ceasefire in Gaza.

But Israel’s ambitions in Syria go beyond just grabbing more land. Israel’s interests are in keeping Syria weak and divided, thus running directly counter to Turkey’s ambition to consolidate the rule of the HTS regime over the Alawite and Kurdish areas.

According to sources who spoke to Reuters, Israel is calling for the Russians to retain their bases in the coastal areas of Syria, and they are lobbying the Americans likewise to call on them to stay, in order to (and I quote) “contain Turkey”. In a coming conflict with HTS, and behind them with Turkey, they see the Russians as potential allies.

With Trump looking to get out of Syria, he may well support the Russians remaining to try and keep Turkey and HTS at heel. The more pertinent question is perhaps whether the Russians would want to stay at all. They do, however, retain important bases, precisely in the Alawite-majority areas: an air base near Latakia, and perhaps more importantly, a valuable Mediterranean port near Tartus. At any rate, Russia and the United States have issued a joint call for a closed session of the UN Security Council.

At the present moment, events seem to be leading towards a further deterioration of relations and possible clash inside Syria between Turkey, Israel and their respective proxies, a fact which is being increasingly commented upon by analysts internationally.

Imperialism has inflicted horrific agonies on the people of Syria. Unless this system is overthrown, throughout the Middle East and the world, it threatens horrors that exceed even those. Mass murder, ethnic strife, new imperialist interventions, displacement, hunger and death are all this system offers.

The workers and poor must unite along class lines, cutting across ethnic and religious divides, to overthrow all the reactionary regimes that plague the region and to kick out imperialism. A Socialist Federation of the Middle East alone can offer hope of ending the torment to which the people of the region are permanently being subjected.