In Syria, over a thousand people have been killed, the vast majority of them civilians, in a spate of massacres largely targeting the country’s Alawite religious minority. Syria’s longtime ruling family, the Assads, are members of the Alawite sect. The recent clashes began Thursday after coordinated attacks by gunmen linked to the former regime killed over 200 members of the new government’s security forces. In response, government forces along with armed groups and individuals poured into Alawite villages throughout the region, carrying out reprisal attacks. Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has denounced the attacks and vowed to hold those responsible to account. Al-Sharaa is “trying to present a more acceptable image,” after years of Syria’s isolation from the global capitalist economy, says Syrian scholar Yasser Munif. “His priority is to end the sanctions against Syria and bring the funding for reconstruction. … He is managing all these tensions and contradictions, and it will be quite the challenge for him to succeed.”
