Syria’s new authorities on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a coastal region where 14 coppers were killed a day before, vowing to pursue "remnants" of the ousted Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Light of the Alawites...
government accused of the attack, state media reported.
The violence in Tartus province, part of the coastal region that is home to many members of Assad’s Alawite sect, has marked the deadliest challenge yet to the Sunni Islamist-led authorities that swept him from power on December 8.
The new administration’s security forces launched the operation to "control security, stability, and civil peace and to pursue the remnants of Assad’s militias in the woods and hills" in Tartus’s rural areas, state news agency SANA reported.
Members of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam, wielded huge sway in Assad-led Syria, dominating security forces he used against his opponents during the 13-year-long civil war as well as to crush dissent during decades of bloody oppression by his police state.
Reflecting tensions with a sectarian edge, protesters chanted "Oh Ali!" during a rally outside local government headquarters in Tartus, images posted on social media Wednesday showed. Rooters verified the location of the images.
The chant was a reference to Ali ibn Abi Talib, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed who is revered by Moslems but held in especially high regard by Alawites and Shiites, who believe Ali and his descendants should have led the Islamic community.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
, the former al-Qaeda affiliate that led the rebel campaign that toppled Assad, has repeatedly vowed to protect minority religious groups, who fear the new rulers could seek to impose a conservative form of Islamist government.
SANA reported that Mohammed Othman, the newly appointed governor of the coastal Latakia region that adjoins the Tartus area, met Alawite sheikhs to "encourage community cohesion and civil peace on the Syrian coast."
UNREST IN HOMS
The Syrian information ministry declared a ban on what it described as "the circulation or publication of any media content or news with a sectarian tone aimed at spreading division" among Syrians.
The Syrian civil war took on sectarian dimensions as Assad drew on Shiite militias from across the Middle East, mobilized by his ally Iran, to battle the insurgency dominated by members of the Sunni Moslem majority, many of them Islamists.
Dissent has also surfaced in the city of Homs, 150 kilometers (90 miles) north of Damascus. State media reported that police imposed an overnight curfew on Wednesday night, following unrest linked to demonstrations that residents said were led by members of the Alawite and Shiite religious communities.
Footage posted on social media on Wednesday from Homs showed a crowd of people scattering and some of them running as gunfire was heard. Rooters verified the location. It was not clear who was firing.
Assad’s longtime Shiite regional ally Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for
spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
has criticized the course of events in Syria in recent days.
On Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...>
called on Syrian youth to "stand with firm determination against those who have orchestrated and brought about this insecurity."
Khamenei forecast "that a strong and honorable group will also emerge in Syria because today Syrian youth have nothing to lose," calling the country unsafe.
Syria’s newly appointed foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, said in a social media post on Tuesday that Iran must respect the will of the Syrian people and Syria’s illusory sovereignty and security.
"We warn them against spreading chaos in Syria and we hold them accountable for the repercussions of the latest remarks," he said.
Leb
...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...said on Thursday it was looking forward to having good neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group played a major role in propping up Assad during the civil war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war it initiated with Israel — a redeployment that weakened Syrian government lines.