Bashar al-Assad Exploited Alawites’ Fear
For decades, the Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad built his power on a single, relentless narrative of survival: The regime presented itself as the only shield against annihilation for the Alawites, the ethno-religious minority that makes up about a tenth of Syria’s population and has long understood itself to be threatened by the country’s Sunni majority.
Supporting Assad, himself an Alawite, was a matter not of loyalty or politics for this community, the regime insisted, but of choosing between existence and extinction. This narrative, and the fear of Sunni extremist groups such as the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, kept many Alawites bound to Assad even as the cost became unbearable.
With Assad gone, Syria’s new government has a chance to prove that his rule was not only vicious but built on a lie. The fact that Alawites were sustained in a state of fear does not excuse the complicity of those among them who supported the regime’s crimes, which included mass incarceration, torture, extrajudicial killings, and meeting peaceful protests with lethal force. But Syria’s future will hinge on its ability to refuse the temptation of collective punishment for ordinary Alawites—and its willingness to instead guarantee their safety.
[Graeme Wood: The end of a 13-year nightmare]
Growing up Alawite in a family and community loyal to the Syrian government, I witnessed firsthand the consequences of standing up against the regime. I joined the uprising when it started. My Alawite background allowed me to pass through checkpoints, and among other acts of protest, I helped transport aid and medical supplies to doctors who treated wounded demonstrators in underground clinics. In my community, opposing Assad was not just seen as a political stance; it was a near-religious betrayal. I was an Alawite who had turned her back on the safety of her people, a traitor.
In 2012, my father, family, and community disowned me. I fled to rebel-held areas, where I became a freelance photojournalist and writer. I eventually immigrated to the United States in 2014 to pursue my education. Looking back, I now understand why many in the Alawite community supported the government during the early years of the conflict—and why, over time, they became deeply disillusioned with the regime they had once staunchly defended.
In the coastal city of Jableh, where I was raised, and in the surrounding Alawite mountains, activists have estimated that tens of thousands of young men died fighting in Assad’s army, particularly in battles against opposition forces starting in 2011. By some estimates, as many as 60 to 70 percent of young Alawite men in certain villages and towns were either killed or wounded during the conflict; some reports suggest that Jableh alone has lost thousands. In late 2016, I interviewed an old neighbor who had lost a leg in the war. He received no state support or official recognition for his sacrifice. “I lost a leg, but at least I didn’t lose my whole family,” he said. Sons, brothers, and fathers had gone off to fight on the front lines—for the very existence of their community, they were told. They returned only as posters on the walls. Jableh became known as “the city of martyrs” among government loyalists and across pro-regime social-media networks—the loss of its young men justified, even celebrated.
But as the war dragged on, cracks began to form in the regime’s narrative, even for Alawites. Friends who still resided in Jableh told me that some die-hard loyalists—those who once chanted, “With our blood and souls, we sacrifice for you, Bashar”—began to quietly tone down their support over time. Whispers turned into questions: Were those who fought for Assad truly fighting for survival, or were they pawns in a game that served only the powerful? The regime circulated videos of Assad and his wife, Asma, visiting injured soldiers. But many of those fighting saw such gestures of solidarity as hollow. “None of those people in the videos got a single lira,” one soldier told me. “Not a single benefit came from those meetings. It was all a show.”
Courage and sacrifice seemed to mean nothing without proximity to power. Even surgeries and prosthetics were reportedly reserved for people with connections to the regime’s elite. Families who had given their sons and their future to the regime survived on bread and tea while Assad’s inner circle and other high officials flaunted their wealth on Instagram—luxury cars, seaside mansions, extravagant weddings. “While we struggled to save money for marriage, they were posting pictures of banquet tables, private jets, and designer clothes,” a friend who had spent nine years in the army told me. “I never understood who they were trying to impress. It felt like we were the ones who had to die for the country, so they could live.”
As Assad regained control over much of the territory lost to the rebels, Syria slid further into poverty. The regime blamed the economic collapse on sanctions, the price Syria had to pay for standing up to foreign powers. Yet sanctions seemed not to touch those who rose to wealth during the war: looters, smugglers, and war profiteers protected by the regime. Syria became the world’s supplier of captagon, an illegally trafficked psychostimulant that it manufactured and smuggled through extensive regional networks. Kidnappings for ransom became common, and checkpoints operated as cash grabs for local thugs.
The earthquake of 2023 finally brought down what was left of the regime’s facade. In Jableh and other coastal cities, families pulled bodies from the rubble with their bare hands and shared what little they had with one another to survive. Meanwhile, reports of arbitrary aid distribution and theft became widespread; officials and regime-affiliated organizations were implicated in diverting assistance to people with connections or for personal gain. Later, the government detained locals who dared to publicly criticize the corruption.
Feelings of disillusionment and betrayal eroded the regime’s most fundamental base of support. For many Alawites, the fear of staying with Assad at last outweighed the fear of leaving him. When the battle of 2024 began, Alawite soldiers fled their positions with a speed that shocked even their enemies.
The victorious rebel group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), offered soldiers willing to surrender a simple deal: Lay down your arms, and you will be safe. In a desperate attempt to salvage loyalty, the regime announced a 50 percent salary increase for soldiers. But this came too late. Many Alawite soldiers saw the HTS offer as a refuge. What had kept them fighting for Assad was not loyalty but fear, and once that fear was gone, so was their allegiance.
[Arash Azizi: Assad’s opponents are building a new order]
Today, the friends I talk with in Jableh express relief that Assad, who couldn’t muster the decency to acknowledge their sacrifices before boarding his plane to Moscow, is now gone. They are also relieved that the war, for now, has ended. But relief is not the same as peace. Many Alawites worry that one nightmare will merely give way to another—that the rebel groups’ revenge will be the answer to their unrequited loyalty to Assad.
Syria has an opportunity to overcome this bind. Fears fed by decades of sectarian propaganda won’t dissipate all at once, but the new government can help assuage them by holding rebel groups accountable and ensuring that justice is dispensed by lawmakers rather than by armed groups with scores to settle. Civil society can build trust by working with Alawite communities to expose and address acts of state violence or corruption.
Justice will surely seem elusive after so much bloodshed, in a country where all sides claim their fallen as martyrs and blame the others for the carnage. But if Syrians are to break the country’s cycle of violence, they will have to acknowledge one another’s pain and find a way to grieve collectively. The war’s scars can serve as reminders not of what divides Syrians, but of why we must rebuild together, and of the terrible cost of fear.