Post-Assad Islamist rule descends into bloodshed, exposing Arab sectarian violence Israel long warned against.
Syria’s descent into post-Assad chaos continues to exact a brutal toll, with fresh violence reported this week in Latakia Province, the heartland of the country’s Alawite minority. According to Syrian state media, three individuals were killed during clashes with internal security forces near the coastal city of Jableh—an incident that underscores the deepening sectarian fault lines gripping the country.
State television claimed the dead were “remnants of the former regime,” while the official SANA described clashes with “wanted outlaws,” admitting that security personnel were also wounded. As has become routine in Syria, vague terminology masks a far darker reality: Islamist authorities consolidating power through force, while minority communities pay the price.
Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad last December, the new Islamist-dominated leadership has launched repeated operations against alleged loyalists of the former regime. Yet these campaigns have increasingly blurred into collective punishment of the Alawite population—a community already traumatized by years of civil war.
Latakia and Syria’s coastal belt have become epicenters of bloodshed. In March, the region witnessed one of the worst massacres since Assad’s fall. A national commission of inquiry acknowledged that at least 1,426 Alawite civilians were killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights placed the toll at more than 1,700. Despite official claims blaming “Assad loyalists,” survivors and independent observers point to indiscriminate violence fueled by sectarian revenge.
Last month, thousands of Alawites took to the streets along the coast, protesting renewed attacks and the utter failure of Syria’s new rulers to protect minorities. Their pleas have gone largely unanswered—another reminder that Arab regimes, whether secular or Islamist, repeatedly collapse into internal bloodletting once coercive control weakens.
For Israel, these events validate long-standing warnings: regional instability is not caused by Israel’s existence, but by Arab political dysfunction, sectarian hatred, and Islamist extremism. While Israel enforces accountability, protects minorities, and investigates its own actions, Syria continues to spiral into chaos—devouring its own communities with impunity.
The tragedy unfolding in Latakia is not an anomaly. It is the predictable outcome of Arab regimes that replace tyranny with anarchy—and trade one form of oppression for another.
