Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has said that he will punish “even among those closest” to him for participating in mass killings in the country’s coastal region days ago.
Hundreds are reported to have died in the violence, including members of the Alawite minority, as well as security forces who were ambushed by apparent supporters of former President Bashar al-Assad. Security forces are accused of carrying out “revenge” attacks after the ambushes carried out against them.
“We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us,” al-Sharaa said in an interview with the Reuters news agency on Monday.
“Many parties entered the Syrian coast and many violations occurred,” al-Sharaa added. “It became an opportunity for revenge.”
Al-Assad is an Alawite, and many leading members of his regime, which was toppled in December, were from the minority, with much of the country’s Sunni majority feeling disenfranchised by a state noted for its mass killing of Syrians affiliated with the opposition.
Al-Sharaa blamed the outbreak of the violence on Thursday on supporters of the former regime who were backed by foreigners. However, he acknowledged that attacks carried out by government forces had then taken place.
The bloodshed has shocked Syria, as the country attempts to stabilise following years of war and an ongoing economic crisis.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that nearly 1,500 had been killed between Thursday and Saturday, including 830 civilians. The network said that security forces and allied groups had killed most of the civilians in the heartland of the Alawites in coastal Syria. Al Jazeera was unable to verify the report.
Al-Sharaa noted that 200 members of the security forces were killed, but did not give an overall death toll, pending an investigation by an independent committee.
“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” al-Sharaa said. The independent committee, which includes Alawite members, was formed on Sunday and has been tasked with probing the killings within 30 days and identifying the perpetrators. A second committee was also established “to preserve civil peace and reconciliation, because blood begets more blood”, al-Sharaa said.
He also added that al-Assad loyalists belonging to the military 4th Division of al-Assad’s brother, Maher, and an allied foreign power had triggered the clashes on Thursday “to foment unrest and create communal discord”.
Foreign powers
The Syrian leader did not identify the foreign power, but pointed to “parties that had lost out from the new reality in Syria”, an apparent reference to longtime al-Assad ally Iran, whose embassy in Damascus is still closed. Tehran has rejected any suggestion it was involved in the violence.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have strongly backed al-Sharaa amid the recent clashes in the country, while former al-Assad ally Russia expressed deep concern and Iran said no group should be “oppressed”.
Washington has blamed “radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis”.
But there has not been any direct contact with US President Donald Trump’s administration in the nearly two months since al-Sharaa took office, amid scepticism over his former ties to al-Qaeda.
When asked why, al-Sharaa said: “The Syrian file is not on the US’s list of priorities. You should ask this question to them. Syria’s door is open.”
Meanwhile with Russia, talks are ongoing over its military presence in two strategic Mediterranean military bases, Tartous Naval Base and Hmeimim Air Base.
“We do not want there to be a rift between Syria and Russia, and we do not want the Russian presence in Syria to pose a danger or threat to any country in the world, and we want to preserve these deep strategic relations,” al-Sharaa said.
Ties with Moscow were so key that “we tolerated the [Russian] bombardment and did not target them directly in order to make room for meetings and dialogue between us and them after liberation,” he added.
Al-Sharaa also mentioned Syria’s south, where Israel has proclaimed a demilitarised zone needs more attention from his government.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz on Monday called al-Sharaa “a jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population”.
But al-Sharaa dismissed increasingly belligerent Israeli threats and Katz’s comments as “nonsense”.
