The coastal city of Baniyas was one of the targets of a wave of sectarian massacres in early March [Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty]
The sectarian killing of six civilians on Monday, including a village mayor and a child, in the countryside near the city of Banias on the Syrian coast, has caused widespread outrage among Syrians.
The targeting of the civilians comes at a time when the Syrian coast has yet to recover from the wave of massacres committed in early March, predominantly targeting the Alawite minority.
The wave of sectarian violence, which killed hundreds of Alawite civilians early last month, followed an insurgency mounted by remnants of Bashar al-Assad’s regime which killed dozens of the new government’s security forces.
On the morning of Eid al-Fitr, two masked gunmen affiliated with military factions within the Syrian army opened fire in the village of Haref Nemra, in the Banias countryside.
The assailants, who had been stationed at a checkpoint just metres from the village, executed the village mayor, Jawdat Fares, and five members of the Shahin family, including a child and an elderly individual, in what appeared to be a sectarian-motivated killing.
Other security forces later intervened, encircling the village in search of the attackers, who were later arrested.
Following the killings, residents of Haref Nemra and nearby villages fled in fear of further attacks to other areas.
A security official in Banias from the Ministry of Interior stated that the perpetrators had been arrested and would be held accountable in a recording posted by the Tartous provincial government on its Facebook page.
The official stressed that the crimes did not reflect the Syrian leadership’s stance, emphasising the commitment of the new authorities to civil peace and the protection of all civilians.
The killings have reignited fears of sectarian-based killings, particularly in light of the massacres that took place in Latakia, Hama, and Tartous last month, which were blamed on “rogue” armed factions affiliated with the Ministry of Defence.
Latakia-based political activist Mehiar Badra told The New Arab‘s Arabic-language sister edition that these violations embarrassed the Syrian government and were not in its interest.
He attributed their recurrence, despite Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s promises to stop such violations, to differing ideologies within the newly formed Syrian army, which consisted of various factions brought under one umbrella after the fall of the Assad regime.
Badra added that the lack of discipline and absence of a state-oriented mentality within the newly formed defence and interior ministries required the new leadership to take urgent action to instil a professional military doctrine in the new army and end the current state of disorder, in which individuals were carrying out lone actions on their own initiative.
“It is not logical for civilians to be welcoming security personnel and requesting their presence while at the same time they fear army soldiers, despite both belonging to the new state,” he said.
Badra sees the government’s “recognition of the crime as a positive step, considering that some are attempting to deny such incidents are happening and distort the truth”.
However, he stressed that that mere acknowledgment isn’t enough and that the authorities “must put an end to these violations and stop portraying them as isolated incidents, or they will, with time, turn into systematic abuses”.
This is an edited and abridged translation from our Arabic edition
