The government in Syria, and especially the country’s de facto leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — have sought to reassure Syria’s many sectarian and ethnic minorities, including the Alawites, non-Alawite Shia, Christians, Kurds, and Druze, that they will be safe under the new, post-Assad regime. Al-Sharaa insists that years ago he stopped being a supporter of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. And now the government of which he is the acknowledged head, though without an official position, has foiled a plot by ISIS to blow up a celebrated Shi’a shrine to Sayeda Zeinab, the granddaughter of Muhammad.
More on the foiling of the ISIS plot to blow up that shrine can be found here: “Syrian intelligence says it foiled Islamic State attempt to target Damascus shrine,” Reuters, January 11, 2025:
Syria’s Intelligence Directorate foiled an attack by the Islamic State group on the Sayeda Zeinab shrine in a Damascus suburb, a site of mass pilgrimage for Shi’ites, state news agency Sana reported on Saturday.
It said members of the cell were arrested before they could detonate an explosion inside the shrine.
The foiled attack will stoke fears that Islamic State is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall last month of President Bashar al-Assad.
Some Syrians and foreign powers have worried that the country’s new leaders, who are from the Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that forced Assad out on Dec. 8, may impose strict Islamic governance on a country with numerous minority groups such as Druze, Kurds, Christians and Shi’ites.
But the announcement by Syria’s de facto government that it thwarted an attack targeting Shi’ite Muslims comes amid reassurances it will protect religious minorities.
“The General Intelligence Directorate is utilizing all its resources to confront all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their diversity,” an intelligence official told Sana….
There have been many such assurances given to the ethnic and sectarian minorities in Syria since Assad’s downfall and flight to Russia on December 8, beginning with the repeated statements from Ahmad al-Sharaa. Not everyone shares his view: a Christian couple was found beheaded, some Alawites — not members of the Assad regime but presumed to have been its supporters — have been killed by vengeful Sunnis. The school textbooks have been revised to emphasize the centrality of Islam. The Syrian Defense Ministry, under new management, now requires all recruits to take a course in the Sharia, thereby precluding Christians from joining the military. Some Alawites and Christians, unsure of the future, have been crossing into Lebanon, presumably waiting things out there until the dust settles in Syria, and the position of minorities in Syria becomes clear.
In publicizing its thwarting of the ISIS members who plotted to blow up the Sayeda Zeinab shrine, the Syrian government hopes to reassure not just the Shi’a (and the Alawites, whose faith is considered a variant on Shia Islam) and other minorities, but also the Western countries now worrying about jihadists ending up in power in Damascus. For the Syrian government will need $350 billion in order to rebuild the country, and it is hoping that some of that money will come from the West, especially from the United States. It has already requested humanitarian aid from Washington, rather than asking the rich Sunni Arab states — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait — for such support. It hopes to inveigle the Americans into providing long-term and substantial financial aid for the new Syria. So of course the Syrian government wants to trumpet its ability to foil plots by ISIS, as a sign to the West that it has definitely cut ties with that group of uber-jihadists.
One hopes that the Americans and the other peoples of the West will not be providing financial support for Syria. The rule should be firm: no Western aid to Muslim lands. The impoverished Arabs of Syria should be made to understand that it is the rich Arab states, not the West, from whom they must seek support.
Hank says
“One hopes that the Americans and the other peoples of the West will not be providing financial support for Syria. The rule should be firm: no Western aid to Muslim lands. The impoverished Arabs of Syria should be made to understand that it is the rich Arab states, not the West, from whom they must seek support.”
Well said. Problem with the West is that it is full of virtue-signaling politicians who don’t give a sh…t about their country and its citizens or what they are sending taxpayer money to. They are busy with everything else except their country. Virtue-signaling is the name of the game.
Islam, its doctrines and mindset is the problem.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
As far as foreign support goes, there is no reason the new Syrian regime can’t get support from Turkey and China