Standing beside the bodies of two men lying on the ground, blood pooling around one of them, in the Syrian village of Qabo Al-Awamiya in the Latakia countryside, a woman shouts in despair: “God won’t forgive you.”
“Are those your sons? God won’t forgive you,” one of the men she’s speaking to, who is out of frame and appears to be holding the camera, responds. “You started it,” he says, as he issues a chilling threat: “I swear, we’re going to crush every Alawite.”
The exact circumstances surrounding the footage were not immediately clear. But it is one of more than 15 videos geolocated and verified by NBC News capturing the deadly violence that unfolded in Syria last week after fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime attacked government forces on March 6, setting off a wave of revenge killings largely targeting the Alawite community, the small Islamic sect to which the Assad family belongs.
In one video, an armed man can be seen pummeling and taunting another man, before setting him free only to shoot him as he runs away; in another, men are forced to crawl on their hands and knees before being shot. In several others, bodies can be seen amassed on streets and in mass graves in areas across Latakia, a former stronghold of ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
A sweeping response from security forces has stabilized the violence, but imagery has laid bare the deep divisions coursing through Syrian society after more than a decade of civil war, with the deadly attacks highlighting the colossal challenge the country’s interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, faces in his bid to fulfill his vow to lead a more unified and inclusive Syria.
More than 1,300 people were killed in a dayslong eruption of violence earlier this month after the retaliatory attacks were launched following the assault on security forces, with more than 970 civilians, mostly from the Alawite community, among those killed, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Hundreds of Syrian government soldiers and fighters loyal to Assad were also killed in clashes.
The majority of the killings were focused in the governorates of Latakia and Tartus along the Mediterranean coast, both former Assad strongholds and home to majority-Alawite populations. Hundreds of people were also killed in Hama, further inland, and elsewhere.
Some have accused government forces of being behind the retaliatory attacks, with the violence fueling doubts about Sharaa’s own stance as his past life as a jihadi leader continues to hang over his future ambitions.
Those accusations have come despite Sharaa’s own calls for peace amid the violence, as well as his decision to launch an investigation into the violence, vowing to bring those responsible to justice.
One member of the Alawite community, who spoke on the condition of anonymity over fears for his safety, told NBC News that promise gave him little reassurance.
The 24-year-old man described how he and his neighbors in a town in the governorate of Hama were forced out of their homes on March 7 by “masked groups.” He said he noticed one white vehicle with the words “Public Security” emblazoned on it.
“They forced us out of the house and made us kneel on the ground, warning us, ‘Be quiet and don’t say a word, or I will shoot you,’” he said in messages on Monday. He said at least two of his neighbors were taken by the men and later found dead, sharing images with NBC News showing the two men lying on the ground bloodied, one with a severe wound through his left eye.
NBC News was not able to independently verify the details of his account. But now, he said, he lives in fear of another attack and is “considering seeking asylum in another country because of the fear and terror.”
The man said he was not an Assad supporter but that under the regime, he had felt more protected as an Alawite. He said he felt convinced that the current government had at least some role in the attacks against his community.
It’s a sentiment many are likely to share in the Alawite community, said Tim Eaton, a senior research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House.
He noted that Assad’s ties to the Alawite community, as well as the community’s strong presence within the regime, created a “kind of dependency,” while also exacerbating “the animosity of those opposing the regime.”
The deadly violence in recent days marks a major turning point in Syria following Assad’s ouster, led by Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, rebel group, highlighting the difficulties Syria’s leader faces in navigating a complicated security landscape rife with sectarian divisions that simmered for months before coming to a boil.
Muhsen al-Mustafa, a research assistant at the Istanbul-based Omran Center for Strategic Studies, said in a phone interview Monday that while he felt the security situation in Syria was more stable now, there was still widespread “confusion” about the state of “peace inside the country.”
“This feels to be a major test of rule of law and the rhetoric of Sharaa’s leadership,” Eaton said in a separate phone interview Thursday.
But, he said, “I feel like the response to it is going to be the more decisive part to it, because is he going to be able to rein these elements in? Is he going to actually walk the talk in terms of holding [those responsible for the violence] accountable?”
“The challenges are so incredibly steep,” he said.
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