Mainstream Media Ignoring Ethno-Religious Genocide Under Syria’s New Rulers

Mainstream Western media previously wrote several puff pieces on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its US-designated terror leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in the wake of Assad’s ouster, but now that same media is completely ignoring the atrocities taking place under Jolani’s watch.

Various armed allied groups of HTS are rampaging through the central and northern countryside, attacking Christians and Alawites, in a developing ethno-religious genocide. It has only been one month since Assad was overthrown.

Initially HTS and other factions, which includes foreign groups such as Chechens and Uyghurs, rounded up individuals and tortured or executed them under the guise that they were former “Assad regime agents”.

Now, according to regional reports, the jihadists are dropping even this pretense and are simply taking over Alawite villages. Serious problems and threats are also being reported in the historic ‘Valley of the Christians’ (or Wadi al-Nasara, which lies in Western Syria in Homs governate).

Various locations have seen jihadists seeking to impose public segregation of the sexes, Islamic head-coverings, and blanket bans on alcohol… 

A group of young men and women are eating, drinking, and smoking shisha at a restaurant in Latakia, when an armed jihadist preacher walks in with an automatic rifle, lecturing them about the sinfulness of not covering their hair and smoking. Welcome to the new #Syria. pic.twitter.com/yJrmZNrREl

— Greco-Levantines World Wide (@GrecoLevantines) January 9, 2025

Below is a machine translated report from Lebanon’s major Al-Akhbar newspaper on some of the latest [emphasis ZH]…

* * *

Today, the villages of Hama’s northern and eastern countryside are witnessing liquidation operations based on identity. Local forces are not even using the excuse of saying that they are going after “regime remnants” or people who are “against the revolution” before ordering the killing.

They are terrorizing the residents of the Alawite sect, and pressuring them to evacuate their homes, especially in some eastern villages affiliated with Salamiyah.

This is changing the demographic face of this countryside and will continue so long as chaos continues and the new Syrian administration does not intervene to stop it. In the villages of Al-Zaghba, Mabatan, Maryoud, Al-Fanat and Ma’an in the eastern countryside, there are thefts and looting of property, while armed factions burn houses to ensure that residents do not return.

A resident of Al-Zaghba village confirmed to Al-Akhbar that “the militants present in the village prevent the return of the homeowners, and if the purpose of returning is to check on the house or bring some items and necessities from it, then the residents enter at their own risk.”

ECONOMIC STRANGULATION OF CHRISTIAN AREAS BEGINS
VALLEY OF THE CHRISTIANS: After the disarming process in the Valley of the Christians was declared as finished yesterday, deforestation of forests & fields around the villages Tannourine, Mashta Azar & Jwar el-Afes has begun… https://t.co/wzPrhD0tmA pic.twitter.com/W35yIBuFOE

— OstensibleOyster (@Ostensiblay) January 9, 2025

The same scenario was repeated in the village of Maryoud, most of whose residents have been displaced. “The militants killed a civilian man from the village who returned to check on his house during the past two days. When we contacted the Commission to find out the affiliation of these killers, it responded that the area was outside the control of its factions.