Ahmed al-Sharaa presents himself as a “moderate” to the world, someone who is ready to make peace with Israel (provided, of course, that Israel returns all of the Golan Heights to Syria, something Jerusalem will never do), someone worthy of American political and economic support. But the persecution of Christians, Alawites, and other minorities suggest otherwise. Instead his regime is dominated by Sunni Muslims intent on suppressing Syria’s minorities. More on this story can be found here: “Christians arbitrarily detained in Syria denied Bible access, forced to observe Ramadan, CSI report,” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, July 30, 2026:
Christians and other minority groups have been arbitrarily detained by the Syrian Transitional Government for reasons that “sometimes appear to be motivated in part by the detainees’ ethnic or religious identity,” according to a newly published report by Christian Solidarity International that was presented to the UN, which alleged that detainees are often forced to adopt Islamic practices and denied access to items connected to their own faith.
Acknowledging that Damascus has faced an “enormous challenge” ensuring there is accountability for the crimes committed under the regime of Bashar al-Assad, CSI reported that the “settlement” system proposed to deal with the crisis had been used as a template.
Under the system, members of the Assad regime’s security forces were allowed to present themselves to the authorities, hand over their weapons, and receive new ID cards after the government had verified that they were not suspected of grave crimes against Syrians.
Though the system was a way to calm the transition, international reports and investigations noted that thousands of people said to be affiliated with the previous regime, exercising their political rights, or accused of extortion exchanges, continue to be detained without trial.
Suleiman Khalil, who served as mayor of Sadad from 2012 until 2016, is an example of one such detainee. He was detained on February 8, 2025, and remains in detention without charge, without access to a lawyer, without the right to receive visits or communications from his family, and without information about the evidence against him, CSI noted.
Khalil’s family has stressed that he is a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and he did not take part in combat operations, though his Christian-majority town came under attack both by the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist group founded by current Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. The attack by Nusra saw the town occupied for a week and 41 civilians murdered.
“This history raises the question of whether Mr. Khalil is being punished for protecting his town from attack by forces which now control the Syrian government,” the report said.
These abductions, imprisonments, and even murders, of Christians, Alawites, Kurds, and Druze in Syria demonstrate the true nature of the Sunni Muslim regime that now rules in Damascus. Al-Sharaa may insist that he is a “moderate,” that there are no revenge killings, and that the Syrian minorities are well-treated, but the facts say otherwise. The American government now has tremendous economic power over Syria — the power to impose, or to withhold, economic sanctions — but has yet to threaten Syria with sanctions if it fails to protect its minorities. Given the evidence above of the parlous state of those minorities, now is the time to do so.
Twerzig says
Why do people respect a man who was a polygamist and slave trader?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Talking about Muhammad? Or al Shara’a?
gravenimage says
Syrian Government Persecutes Christians, Alawites, Kurds, and Druze
………………………………………….
They also murder them outright. Nothing “moderate” about this.
abu taleb says
Trump welcomed the Syrian jihadist leader in White House in 2025 while the Syrian authority were (and still) doing genocide.
Beware of the wolf on sheep clothing.
Luchtpint says
Given the fact that Allah is supposed to be greater than any other deity on the planet, this is just simple Islamic logic.
And that’s why cultural and religious minorities are persecuted across the muslim-majority world : Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhist, Zoroastrians,…etc. (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Southern Thailand, Malaysia, Iran, Egypt,…et al.)
And that’s why the whole shebang has been spilling over into Western Europe : because multiculturalists have made them entitled to do the same across non-muslim-majority countries.
The flaming gates of hell are wide open.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I was watching one of those RealLifeLore videos yesterday. One of the values of Syria is as a gateway to the Mediterranean of Asian Arab countries – Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, et al
The video that I watched explored and explained the alternatives that every country had to the Strait of Hormuz. While Saudi Arabia and Emirates are lucky, in that Saudi Arabia has the Red Sea and the East-West pipeline, while the Emirates has a bit of coastline on the Gulf of Oman that avoids Hormuz completely, the other countries, like Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan could use Syria as a land bridge to the Mediterranean. That was out of question all these decades since Assad was a vassal of both the islamic regime and Putin, and so didn’t allow them to do something that would either be an alternative to Russian supplies to Europe, or bypassing Hormuz
It explains why since the fall of Assad, Arab countries have been happy to do what they can to help Syria recover, so that they can build their pipelines and railroads through Syria to Baniyas and avoid Hormuz altogether. Even though countries like Saudi Arabia are becoming less uptight about islam, they’re more than happy to gloss over what al-Shara’a does in Syria if they can get from him that gateway to the Mediterranean
Luchtpint says
That makes an awful lot of sense. On the other hand, it’s also another route along which the Saudis have imported their crazed Wahhabism into Syria. Like they do just about anywhere else they can.
I can’t think of any other reason why al-Shara’a keeps upping the ante when it comes to persecuting minorities since he came to office.
You can point the finger straight at Saudi Arabia, for sure.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I actually disagree on this one. HTS came to power on a ride w/ Erdogan. Saudi Arabia has been going easy on islam, given all the other pressures on their budget, since 2017, and if one remembers, they had their own militia in Syria in the early 2010s, which they later let go of. What Syria has is not Wahabism: in fact, outside Qatar, Wahabism is no longer calling the shots anywhere
Saudi Arabia just decided to back whoever came to power in Syria in place of Assad. Even w/ Assad, they had previously backed him against Turkey, since they didn’t want Syria to fall to Turkey. But once that did happen, they decided to court HTS using the common enemy being the islamic republic to make common cause
Luchtpint says
The only thing I do know is that Wahhabism / Saudi-backed Salafism spreads its tentacles across the globe. I’ve read enough books on the subject to know that there’s nothing like “going easy on the local population” in countries like Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. It all sounds like fiction to me.
The Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia is subsidized by the Saudi monarchy. Historically, the Wahhabi clergy and the Saudi dynasty feed off of each other. The Wahhabi clergy is an institute that officially says how the local population needs to behave, it serves as a totalitarian control mechanism funded by the Saudi princes, et al. Also, Salafists who vent their criticism of the regime and the “flexible” interpretations of the Wahhabist institutes( for instance, because they allow foreign troops to be stationed in the country) regularly end up in jail, until they see “the error of their ways”.
In such cases, those “independent” Salafists (critical of the regime) are either threatened to fall in line with the official Wahhabist doctrine and they get offered high-ranking positions in so-called Saudi universities to spread Whahhabism from there, or either they get a deal with the government to go agitate and push there agenda somewhere else, as long as they don’t return to the KSA.. (like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and the like)
Furthermore, the top echelons of the Saudi government are not necessarily the sole culprits when it comes to this strategy. Osama Bin Laden, for instance, got backed by private initiatives to fund his terrorist network out of donations by private citizens and even Saudi princes who had links with the government’s security services when they decided to fund the Mujahidin against the Soviet Russians. Some of these princes were even critical of the regime in KSA but kept their thoughts to themselves, as long as they were able to spread Salafism to faraway lands by covertly funding terrorists there.
As a consequence, this also became a cause of Wahhabist infestation of Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) members, who in turn started organizing the Taliban to rid themselves from the Mujahidin factions they backed previously, because they were infighting and deemed to “moderate”. We all know what the long-term result turned out to be.
This duplicity has not come to an end, as far as I am aware. It seems pretty odd that countries like Saudi Arabia or Qatar seem to be doing the utmost to keep funding mosques across the West and the like, and to buy themselves into Western societies in so many ways.
This is way more complicated than you may assume. There’s an obvious gray zone between official Saudi-backed Wahhabist doctrine and “independent” Salafist thinkers who are critical of the regime. The latter group can always be incorporated to do the bidding of the former, with absolutely devastating consequences for the rest of the world..
Wahhabism is just one particular type of Salafism , that stems from the Hanbali madhab and became historically intertwined with the interests of the Saudi princes from the get-go . It is malleable in the sense that it serves as the official doctrine of Saudi Arabia and because it is beholden to the funds of the princes. If the Saudis order the Wahhabist clergy to appear more flexible, then they will do so. I don’t really think that keeping up this pretence makes a lot of difference for the local population in KSA.
I am very skeptical about this. There is also taqiyya in Islam to consider, as per usual.
Tim Brown says
And you can all thank Donald Trump for this, yep, he’s the one that made it happen, but you don’t, why? Because of idolatry, elevating a man the way MAGA does is wrong, and there needs to be repentance.