Illustrative image.
The fate of 50 women from the Alawite religious minority remains unknown after they disappeared under mysterious circumstances since the beginning of the year, in a series of different incidents in several Syrian governorates, including Homs, Tartous, Lattakia, and Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights warned in a report released on April 18.
The disappearances caused widespread concern, especially amid rising violence, crime, and the lack of deterring law, the London-based monitoring group said.
The Alawites are Syria’s largest minority. The family of former president Bashar al-Assad belongs to the group. Due to this Alawites have been facing increasing violation by the forces of the Islamist-led interim government since the fall of the regime.
According to SOHR, the women were kidnapped in different circumstances, some of which vanished from their own houses, while others disappeared while going to work.
No group has officially or unofficially claimed responsibility, and the identity of those behind the disappearances remains unknown.
The government has not yet addressed the disappearances and it’s unclear if any of the ceases were being investigated.
Alawite activists warned that the women may have been taken to other parts of Syria to be sold as “Sbaya, the Islamic term for female sex slaves.
More than 1,600 civilians, mostly Alawites, were killed during a government crackdown on the coast that began on March 6. After facing international pressure, the government announced that all operations on the coast were over by March 10 and formed an investigation committee.
The killings displaced more than 20,000 Alawites to northern and eastern Lebanon with around 10,000 others taking shelter at Russia’s Khmeimim Air Base near the city of Jableh in the southern countryside of Latakia. The numbers of refugees continue to grow.
War monitors and activists have repeatedly warned since the crackdown that Alawite civilians were still being targeted by government forces.
On April 15, SOHR said that 42 Alawites lost their lives due to sectarian violence blamed on government forces in the past two weeks, with incidents occurring from Latakia to Tartus and extending to Hama and Homs.
So far, the government has shown no interest in addressing the concerns of the Alawites, or in establishing any meaningful communication with them. As a result, the group appears to have lost all trust in the state.
Sheikh Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and Diaspora, and several other prominent leaders of the group renewed calls for international protection earlier this month.
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this is why erdogan aliyev netanyahu and al julani all need to be exterminated. they are pro zionist terrorists who commit crimes against humanity they have enabled the zionists to murder thens of thousands of palestinians in gaza its time muslims wake up and take out the real enemy israel and its helpers aliyev al julani and erdogan.
that’s 70% of the population. 60% of the population wants to kill 15% of the population, without secession this cannot end well.
and russia is not part of the solution, but is cooperating with terrorists.
they pulled the rug under assad instead of helping him when the zionist goons from idlib attacked. this all could have been prevented. right now russia is also playing directly in israels long term greater israel strategy they handed syria over to them on a silver platter. i hope that the protests in turkey gain more traction erdogan needs to pay for what he has done. that cockroach is complicit in all crimes against the syrian people
so i hope that hts will lure ghassan alian to the battlefield with their masacres. i’m curious what putler and erdogan would do?
hts would suddenly find out that there is no food, no water, no houses, and instead of rain, rockets are falling from the sky.it would be worse for turkey than 1683 in austria. in this case, in the russian base, hts would eat the alawites who live there. then the hts would cannibalize each other like rats on an abandoned ship.
what’s wrong with the plan that worked in south sudan and croatia?
russia and iran should secede this part of the country from syria, just as you seceded croatia from milosevic. the druze will annex to israel.
or the russians transport 4 million people from syria to russia. when pol pot’s killing fields happen, it will be too late and europe will blame russia and hts for it. it can’t be otherwise.
russia has made deal with netanyahu and erdogan, so it doesn’t care about its former allies.
in the united states, the two most famous druze are probably the late host of american top 40 casey kasem, and human rights lawyer amal clooney (née alamuddin). but in the middle east, the druze are legendary as fierce fighters, famous for taking on larger powers that threatened their mountain retreats. in israel, the druze community is known and revered for their prominent role in the israeli armed forces.
there are about 140,000 druze in israel, and the community has served with distinction in the israel defense forces since the 1950s, some of them rising to top positions like col. ghassan alian, current commander of the golani infantry brigade; brig.-gen. imad fares, who commanded the givati brigade and later the galilee division; and maj.-gen. yusef mishlav, who became a member of the idf general staff and head of the home front command.
ghassan alian leads an idf brigade? then it would be ridiculous to death at if turkish gangs really attacked druze villages. suddenly putin should start delivering basic food supplies to isis by air and russian planes would be dropping like flies in winter. that one is not normal, he it would be capable of wiping out the entire hts (70% of syria’s population). and make female druze the president of syria.
i wonder how ghassan alian would fare in a clash with jolani’s gang? would it be better than the twelfth of september 1683 in vienna?
a druze member of parliament, ayub kara, is presently a deputy minister in israel’s likud government. in november, israelis from across the political and religious spectrum attended the funeral of a druze police officer, zidan sayif, who lost his life while attempting to save worshipers in a jerusalem synagogue that had been infiltrated by terrorists. the druze are a monotheistic people who trace their lineage back to the biblical jethro, father-in-law of moses
calling themselves “the unitarians” (al-muwahidun), they adhere to a secretive religion based on a combination of jewish, christian, muslim, and gnostic doctrines. (traveling through the region in the 1100s, benjamin of tudela reported that the druze are “mountain dwellers, monotheists, who believe in reincarnation and love the jews.”) druze are regarded as heretics by islam and have suffered a long history of persecution and attempts to force their conversion.
also yazidis and alawites.
today there are perhaps 1.5 million druze, with the overwhelming majority concentrated in the region in which syria, lebanon, israel, and jordan intersect. approximately 750,000 now live in the area surrounding the druze capital of suwayda in southern syria, constituting the majority population in much of the border region with israel and jordan. under the ottomans, the druze enjoyed a high degree of local self-rule under hereditary princes.
from 1921 to 1936, a state called the druze mountain state (jabal al-druze) existed under french tutelage. in conversation with tablet in recent weeks, israeli druze religious and military figures have expressed frustration with the inaction on the part of western and israeli policymakers who have the power to arm them against is and al-qaida (called jabhat al-nusra, the “nusra front” in syria). the most important religious figure among the israeli druze is sheikh muwafak tarif.
tarif, who is in constant contact with religious druze leaders from lebanon and syria, paints a stark picture of what is approaching for the syrian druze. he warns that a jihadist massacre of druze in syria is imminent and says that if it materializes, many israeli druze, including himself, will cross the border to fight alongside their brothers—just as jews would have, if a jewish community abroad was being massacred.
“druze are not yazidis,” he said. “they will not flee from the jihadists. they will stay in their villages and fight, even if it means death. israel has to decide if it wants to watch a bloodbath or do something about it.”
however, he is quick to emphasize that he is not asking for american or israeli “boots on the ground.” “the druze in syria do not want someone else to fight their battles,” he said. “they are asking for only two things from the west
i wonder where these alawite women are. i read nadia murad’s story and i wonder where these women are now.
: supplies of military and civilian equipment that would enable them to fight back the jihadist armies attacking them, and air cover that would neutralize the jihadist artillery now regularly bombarding their villages.” but his voice grew particularly still as he added one more point, perhaps as important to him as the others: “many druze who are veterans of the best israeli units are requesting that they be permitted to go as individuals, to fight alongside their syrian brethren, to defend
their villages,and to train them militarily. this too is something that israel should consider seriously granting us.” a high-ranking druze officer presently serving in the israel defense forces echoed tarif’s frustration with western and israeli responses to the syrian crisis. “certainly the hour of decision is fast approaching for the druze,” he said. “but i believe this is also an hour of decision for israel. israeli policy is currently in total denial about the deep changes
but changes have happened and now isis has escaped from idlib because putler killed the hero utkin, the hero nasrallah was killed by israel, and the hero soleimani was killed by trump. the druze were threatened before and are threatened now, but katz’s army defends them. they always wanted to force them into their wahhabism, because their god commands them to do so. isis is at the level of the inquisition and hts is just a branch of isis.
going on around us in the region. like the frog sitting in a pot being slowly heated, afraid to jump out and hoping the water will simply cool off by itself, we might soon find ourselves in a pot of boiling water with no possible way of getting out. do we really believe the new sectarian-jihadist dimension of regional conflict will simply disappear? do we want to be left with only a choice between hezbollah or is sitting on our borders? if not, we have to consider other options,
of all the bad solutions, hezbollah is the least crazy and psihopatic. jolani and his thugs are so crazy that they would slaughter their own mother if she converted to christianity. this is a serious mental illness that cannot be cured, which is why here in croatia we have psychopaths locked up in a mental asylum. they don’t run the country and we couldn’t let them do that, so we walked away.
my brother is a guard at the mad house and he knows that the nurse and the guard have to go into the room together because the chance of something terrible happening is really high if the nurse is alone in moment. if a female doctor goes into a patient room in a high-security mental institution, she has a nurse with her. unfortunately, all the crazy people from all over the world have settled in syria and are now doing what any normal person would expect.
including helping the druze establish an autonomous region on our borders before it is too late.” for decades, the syrian druze community has been loyal to the ass
indeed, on june 23, druze leaders in suwayda issued a press release once again reaffirming that “we depend only on our syrian identity for protection, and that suwayda is an indivisible and inseparable part of syria, our motherland.”
in the end, the israeli druze will incorporate the syrian druze into greater israel, and one problem will be solved.
druze know that hts is made up of murderers, rapists, and other psychopaths, and druze prefer israel.
western leaders have for the most part maintained a thunderous silence. as many as three minorities now e in syria and iraq faces destruction, the ball is again in our court.
iran, however, discarded the alawites like a piece of used toilet paper.
the iranians threw away the alawites like throwing a ham wrapper in the trash.