In an interview with The Gateway Pundit, Dr. Morhaf Ibrahim, president of the Alawites Association of the United States (AAUS), explained that Syria’s minorities; Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and Christians, have suffered greatly under the rule of Syria’s new government. He emphasized that while the regime of Bashar al-Assad was often referred to as “Alawite,” it was not representative of the Alawite people. “Upon the fall of the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, Alawites suffered from atrocities committed by the al-Julani government,” Dr. Ibrahim said.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, assumed power in December 2024. Since then, Syria has witnessed devastating sectarian violence. In March 2025, according to official reports, more than 1,300 Alawites were killed in Latakia Governorate by government forces. However, the official number is much smaller than what was reported by eyewitnesses on the ground, including the Free Burma Rangers (FBR) (see my report in The Gateway Pundit), Alawite individuals, and social media users who filmed countless incidents of murder and mutilation carried out by government-aligned forces, some of whom were in uniform.
Eyewitnesses claimed that entire military columns, with trucks carrying hundreds of soldiers, arrived in towns and villages and killed every Alawite they could find. Dr. Ibrahim described one such incident on March 7 as “a huge massacre” where thousands of Alawites were killed and women kidnapped. He warned that “the current situation is very dire for them.” Reports of home invasions, kidnappings of Alawite women, and extrajudicial executions continue to circulate.
The violence has not been limited to Alawites. In April and July 2025, attacks on the Druze community left nearly 1,000 people dead, including 588 Druze civilians. The massacre took place in Suwayda Governorate, the Druze heartland of southern Syria. Dr. Ibrahim confirmed that “Suwayda has been under siege. They’re really suffering from a humanitarian crisis. No one goes out. Kids don’t go to school. There’s no money. They’re under really very tough circumstances right now,” he explained.
Christians have also faced escalating persecution. The most devastating attack occurred on June 22, 2025, when a gunman opened fire during Divine Liturgy at the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus before detonating an explosive vest, killing at least 30 people and injuring 54 others. Earlier incidents included the December 2024 shooting at a Greek Orthodox church in Hama, the torching of a Christmas tree in Al-Suqaylabiyah, and the July 2025 destruction of the Greek Melkite Church of St. Michael in Sweida. Militants have gone door-to-door forcing residents to identify their faith, and Christian women have been pressured to adopt Islamic dress codes.
Dr. Ibrahim stressed that the brutality of al-Julani’s government must be understood in the context of his long extremist background. “Al-Julani has a terrorist background. He went to Iraq in the early 2000s to fight against Americans. Then he joined ISIS, then he joined al-Nusra, and then al-Nusra became part of Al-Qaeda. Then in 2015, he changed the name from al-Nusra to HTS, which is Hayushan. They took over Idlib and, because of Turkish support, they were able to take over the country after the fall of the Assad regime.”
Turkey has emerged as the primary external backer of Syrian rebel forces which ousted Bashar al-Assad, providing support to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and directly controlling the Syrian National Army (SNA). Despite its name, the SNA has been described as a “wholly Turkish-owned entity” deployed to target Kurdish forces. Since December 2024, Turkish forces and their SNA proxies have killed more than 218, mostly Kurdish, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters and 121 Kurdish civilians in operations aimed at crushing Kurdish autonomy. These operations have included the execution of wounded Kurdish combatants and the targeting of vital civilian infrastructure, such as the Tishreen Dam.
Turkey justifies these actions by branding all Syrian Kurdish groups as extensions of the PKK terrorist organization, a designation that allows Ankara to present strikes on civilians and infrastructure as counterterrorism measures. Turkey and Iran also share a common interest in preventing the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region, fearing that their own sizable Kurdish populations, roughly 20 percent in Turkey and 10 percent in Iran, would demand similar rights.
NATO has proven effectively powerless to curb Ankara’s interventions. U.S. officials cite Turkey’s NATO membership as the reason Washington cannot directly intervene in the conflict between Turkish and Syrian Kurdish forces. While the U.S. opposes Turkey’s attacks on the SDF and has threatened economic sanctions, its strategic need to keep Turkey within the alliance has limited Western responses to little more than muted criticism.
Dr. Ibrahim argued that Turkey’s role in empowering Islamist forces cannot be overstated. “Turkey is an Islamist country, under the regime of Erdogan. Erdogan himself has a background of the Muslim Brotherhood. Erdogan is an authoritarian, autocracy regime. The unwavering support to HTS and Islamists in the area made it very difficult for minorities, including Alawites, to be able to really survive and protect themselves,” he said. He added that Turkish backing was decisive for al-Julani’s rise to power: “Turkey’s support … the main force behind the success of al-Julani taking over these areas and maintaining his power. They are using drones from Turkey, they are using ammunition from Turkey, and they’ve been having full Turkish support, making them able to control the country and commit atrocities as well.”
Asked about relations between minority groups, Dr. Ibrahim emphasized unity in the face of Islamist aggression. He explained that Alawites, Kurds, Christians, Druze, and even moderate Sunnis had developed strong ties, collaborating in conferences, congressional meetings, and discussions with the State Department. “The Kurdish representation was crucial,” he said.
According to Dr. Ibrahim, minorities fear that Islamist dominance will transform Syria into “a very radical, very undemocratic kind of dictatorship that’s going to probably rule Syria for the next few years unless there’s a huge international commitment to the freedom and to the democracy of Syria and the freedom of the people of Syria.”
He explained that by “Islamist” he means theocratic autocracies like ISIS, the Taliban, or al-Qaeda. In contrast, he supports a democratic Syria with religious freedom and a clear separation between religion and politics. In his estimation, however, al-Al-Julani’s HTS government has already revealed its Islamist nature. “They don’t accept minorities. They don’t accept religious freedom, and the country is moving in the wrong direction,” he concluded.
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