A Syrian man barely escaped a wave of sectarian killings. His brothers did not

In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, members of the Syrian White Helmets collect the bodies of people found dead following a recent wave of violence between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to former President Bashar Assad, as well as subsequent sectarian attacks, in the coastal city of Baniyas, Syria, Sunday, March 9, 2025. (AP)
In this photo provided by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, members of the Syrian White Helmets collect the bodies of people found dead following a recent wave of violence between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to former President Bashar Assad, as well as subsequent sectarian attacks, in the coastal city of Baniyas, Syria, Sunday, March 9, 2025. (AP)
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Updated 12 March 2025
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A Syrian man barely escaped a wave of sectarian killings. His brothers did not

A Syrian man barely escaped a wave of sectarian killings. His brothers did not
  • Of the roughly 1,000 civilians killed, nearly 200 were in Baniyas, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor
  • Government reinforcements — which residents said did not intervene during the height of the killings — were eventually sent to restore order, and calm appeared to hold by late Monday

BEIRUT: The Haydar family huddled in their apartment while gunmen stalked their hometown of Baniyas, hunting for members of Syria’s minority Alawite sect like them. After 24 terrifying hours, a friend helped Samir Haydar, his wife and two sons escape — just in time.
Minutes later, the gunmen, who were Sunni Muslim, broke into his building and killed the Alawites still there, Haydar said. Down the street, gunmen took Haydar’s two older brothers and a nephew out of their homes and killed them, too.
“If I had stayed five minutes longer, I with my entire family would have been killed,” Haydar, 67, said.




This undated photo provided by Samir Haydar shows his brother Iskander Haydar, 69, who was shot and killed by gunmen on the rooftop of his house last week, in his hometown of Baniyas, in Syria's coastal region. (AP)

This past weekend’s sectarian violence was possibly among the bloodiest 72 hours in Syria’s modern history, including the 14 years of civil war from which the country is now emerging — and it threatens to open an endless cycle of vengeance. From early Friday to Sunday night, attackers rampaged through coastal provinces heavily populated by Alawites, as well as the nearby provinces of Hama and Homs, killing people, sometimes entire families, on streets, in homes, on rooftops.
Of the roughly 1,000 civilians killed, nearly 200 were in Baniyas, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor. The toll could not be independently confirmed.
Among the attackers, witnesses say, were hard-line Sunni Islamists, including Syria-based jihadi foreign fighters, who came from nearby provinces. Some had been allied to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the disbanded insurgent group that in December led the overthrow of longtime autocrat Bashar Assad and whose members dominate the interim government now running the country.
But many were local Sunnis, unleashing hatreds pent-up over past atrocities blamed on Alawites loyal to Assad.
Survivors say some of the attackers in Baniyas were Syrians from surrounding villages seeking vengeance over a 2013 massacre in the nearby town of Beyda, where paramilitaries killed several hundred Sunnis. It was one of several mass killings under then-President Assad, whose attempts to crush protests helped foment an armed insurgency.
Assad, who is Alawite, filled his security agencies and paramilitaries with members of the sect. Some Sunnis blame the entire community for Assad’s brutal crackdowns, though Alawites say they also suffered under his rule.
“We have a lot of injustices. Many were waiting for the chance to let it out,” Haydar said from his hiding place after fleeing home. “Instead of the pain teaching them mercy and making them against killings, they translated it into more killings.”
Government reinforcements — which residents said did not intervene during the height of the killings — were eventually sent to restore order, and calm appeared to hold by late Monday. The government declared an independent committee appointed by the president will investigate the attacks. But the bloodshed has deeply tainted attempts by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa to convince Syria’s minorities that he wants to include them as equals.
Blood and plunder
The bloodshed began after reports Thursday night of seemingly coordinated attacks by Assad loyalists on government security forces near the city of Latakia and elsewhere along the coast.
The Associated Press spoke to nine residents from villages and towns hit by the violence. Some refused to give their names out of fear for their security.
Haydar said that around daybreak Friday, hordes of armed Sunnis descended on Baniyas and surrounding villages in vans and pickup trucks, and waving guns. Another resident said she heard the gunmen shouting, “God is great,” and threatening and cursing the Alawite residents.
Images and videos soon surfaced online, mostly posted by the perpetrators. Some show fighters in military fatigues pushing residents out of homes into the streets, beating some with rifles and forcing them to bark like dogs, in humiliation. Some show fighters firing on civilians. The hundreds of videos posted could not be immediately verified.
Looting and theft were rampant. Haydar said armed men went into the building of one of his elder brothers, 74-year-old Rafik, stole his valuables and left.
Hiding in his home, Haydar said he saw fighters shoot a neighbor at the entrance of a nearby building. One fighter turned the body over to ensure he was dead.
Shot on the roof
Around noon Friday, Haydar got a call from the wife of his other brother, Iskander. She screamed that fighters had stormed their building and taken away Iskander and their son, Mourad.
Later, Mourad told his mother what happened. The fighters dragged them to the roof and made him, his father and five other men lie down. Then they sprayed them with bullets. Miraculously, Mourad was uninjured. His father and the rest of the men were killed.
Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of the same neighborhood, said five of his neighbors were shot in the street, including two doctors and their two children. The gunmen prevented anyone from coming to remove their bodies for hours. Acting fast, Sheha secured a van. He, his wife, three children and other families squeezed in and fled.
That night, the village where they took refuge also came under attack. Sheha said he and hundreds of others fled again, sleeping for two nights outside among olive and pine trees.
By Saturday afternoon, Sheha said he knew of at least 20 people killed, including three cousins and two of their children with special needs, gunned down in their food stall.
When fighters entered his nephew’s house, they asked if his wife was Sunni, because she wore a headscarf. They checked her ID and let her go. His sister, living in a building with many Christians, said the gunmen spared them and her husband, in his 80s.
Haydar and his family escaped with help from a Sunni friend who negotiated for hours with the gunmen, explaining that Haydar had once been imprisoned by Assad’s security forces.
The friend, declining to give his name for fear of retribution, said the gunmen shoved and hit him, criticizing him for harboring Alawites.
During the weekend’s violence, the friend sheltered 15 Alawites in his home, he said by phone from Baniyas.
In Tuwaym, an Alawite village in the Sunni-majority Hama province in central Syria, a resident said gunmen summoned the men, beat them with rifles and shot some. By the time they left, they had killed 25 members of her family, including her father and nine children between the ages of four and 15.
“I carried the children with my own hands. Some had their bones coming out of the gaping wounds,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear for her safety.
Aftermath
In Baniyas and elsewhere, bodies were left lying in streets, cars and apartment buildings, civil rescue teams said as they began to collect the dead. Families put out lists online of their slain loved ones. Haydar buried his brothers Sunday.
Sheha said that as of Tuesday evening, he and hundreds of others remained in the forests outside Baniyas, too afraid to return home. At night, when it gets cold, they shelter in a nearby village.
Sheha, who had been part of a group of Alawite civilians that sought to build bridges with the new government, said the Alawites can’t be blamed for the crimes of Assad’s forces. Most Alawites were impoverished under Assad, abused by his top aides and forced to show loyalty and serve in the army, he said.
Instead of seeing inclusion and transitional justice, the community is targeted in revenge, he said.
“Now people are not just afraid, they’re terrified,” he said. “They have no trust, even in the government security that are present ... We’re terrified of anyone we see with a mask on.”
 

 


Palestinians denounce Israeli recognition of new West Bank settlements

Palestinians denounce Israeli recognition of new West Bank settlements
Updated 23 March 2025
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Palestinians denounce Israeli recognition of new West Bank settlements

Palestinians denounce Israeli recognition of new West Bank settlements

JERUSALEM: The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned on Sunday an Israeli decision to recognize more than a dozen new settlements in the occupied West Bank, upgrading existing neighborhoods to independent settlement status.
The decision by Israel’s security cabinet was a show of “disregard for international legitimacy and its resolutions,” said a statement from the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry.
The West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, is home to about three million Palestinians as well as nearly 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right leader and settler who was behind the cabinet’s decision, hailed it as an “important step” for Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Smotrich is a leading voice calling for Israel to formally annex the West Bank — as it did in 1967 after capturing east Jerusalem in a move not recognized by most of the international community.
“The recognition of each (neighborhood) as a separate community... is an important step that would help their development,” Smotrich said in a statement on Telegram, calling it part of a “revolution.”
“Instead of hiding and apologizing, we raise the flag, we build and we settle,” he said.
“This is another important step toward de facto sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” added Smotrich, using the Biblical name for the West Bank.
In its statement, the Palestinian foreign ministry also mentioned an ongoing major Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank, saying it was accompanied by “an unprecedented escalation in the confiscation of Palestinian lands.”
The 13 settlement neighborhoods approved for development by the Israeli cabinet are located across the West Bank. Some of them are effectively part of the bigger settlements they belong to while others are practically separate.
Their recognition as separate communities under Israeli law is not yet final.
Hailing the “normalization” of settlement expansion, the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization for the municipal councils of West Bank settlements, thanked Smotrich for pushing for the cabinet decision.
According to EU figures, 2023 saw a 30-year record in settlement building permits issued by Israel.


Lebanon says one dead as Israel resumes strike on south

Lebanon says one dead as Israel resumes strike on south
Updated 23 March 2025
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Lebanon says one dead as Israel resumes strike on south

Lebanon says one dead as Israel resumes strike on south
  • The NNA also reported separate Israeli strikes on Sunday on Naqurah, Shihin and Labbouneh in the south

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said one person was killed Sunday in an Israeli drone strike, a day after the most intense escalation since a November ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah.
“The Israeli enemy raid with a drone on a car in Aita Al-Shaab led to the death of one citizen,” the health ministry said, after the official National News Agency (NNA) had reported the strike on the southern village.
The NNA also reported separate Israeli strikes on Sunday on Naqurah, Shihin and Labbouneh in the south, near the Israeli border.
Saturday saw the most intense escalation since a November ceasefire halted the war between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
The Lebanese health ministry said seven people were killed on Saturday, including in an attack on Tyre which a security source told AFP targeted a Hezbollah official.
Israel said the strikes were “a response to rocket fire toward Israel and a continuation of the first series of strikes carried out” in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah denied any involvement in the rocket attack, and called Israel’s accusations “pretexts for its continued attacks on Lebanon.”
The November ceasefire brought relative calm after a year of hostilities, including two months of open war, between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israel has continued to strike Lebanon after the ceasefire, targeting what it said were Hezbollah military sites that violated the agreement.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to pull its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, but has missed two deadlines to do so and continues to hold five positions it deems “strategic.”


Paramilitary shelling kills 3 in Omdurman after Sudan army gains

Paramilitary shelling kills 3 in Omdurman after Sudan army gains
Updated 23 March 2025
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Paramilitary shelling kills 3 in Omdurman after Sudan army gains

Paramilitary shelling kills 3 in Omdurman after Sudan army gains
  • Eyewitnesses in the area reported seven rounds of shelling rocking residential neighborhoods controlled by the army
  • In recent days, the army regained most of central Khartoum’s government district from the RSF

KHARTOUM: Three civilians including two children were killed Sunday in an artillery attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Omdurman, part of the Sudanese capital, a medical source told AFP.
Eyewitnesses in the area reported seven rounds of shelling rocking residential neighborhoods controlled by the army, which in recent days regained most of central Khartoum’s government district from the RSF.
“Two children and a woman were killed and eight others injured in the shelling,” said the medical source at Al-Nao hospital, one of the city’s last functioning health facilities, requesting anonymity for their safety.
Since April 2023, the RSF has battled Sudan’s regular army in a war that has killed tens of thousands, uprooted over 12 million and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
The army and allied groups on Friday recaptured the country’s presidential palace, launching a clearing operation to push the RSF out of central Khartoum’s administrative and financial district.
On Saturday, they claimed several strategic state institutions that had been overrun by paramilitaries, including the central bank, state intelligence headquarters and the national museum.
RSF fighters remain stationed in parts of central Khartoum including the airport, as well as the capital’s south and west.
From their positions in western Omdurman, they have regularly launched strikes on civilian areas.
In February, over 50 people were killed in a single RSF artillery attack on a busy Omdurman market.
Despite the army’s advances in the capital, Africa’s third largest country remains effectively split in two, with the army holding the east and north while the RSF controls nearly all of the western region of Darfur and parts of the south.


Turkish court jails Istanbul mayor Imamoglu pending trial

Turkish court jails Istanbul mayor Imamoglu pending trial
Updated 23 March 2025
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Turkish court jails Istanbul mayor Imamoglu pending trial

Turkish court jails Istanbul mayor Imamoglu pending trial
  • Ruling likely to stoke tensions after four days of protests
  • The court said Imamoglu and at least 20 others were jailed as part of a corruption investigation

ISTANBUL: A Turkish court jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Sunday pending trial, state media and other broadcasters said, in a move likely to stoke the country’s biggest protests in more than decade.
The decision to send Imamoglu — who is President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival — to prison comes after the main opposition party, European leaders and tens of thousands of protesters criticized the actions against him as politicized.
The court said Imamoglu and at least 20 others were jailed as part of a corruption investigation. A separate ruling on a terror-related investigation has yet to be issued.Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said on Sunday that he will not bow down after court ruled to jail him pending trial over corruption related investigation.
"We will, hand in hand, uproot this blow, this black stain on our democracy... I am standing tall, I will not bow down," Imamoglu said in a post on X.


Israel military says it intercepted missile from Yemen

Israel military says it intercepted missile from Yemen
Updated 23 March 2025
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Israel military says it intercepted missile from Yemen

Israel military says it intercepted missile from Yemen
  • The Houthis said early on Saturday they had “targeted Ben Gurion airport” with a ballistic missile
  • United States began launching heavy strikes against Yemen’s Houthis last week

Jerusalem: Israel’s military said early on Sunday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen after air raid sirens sounded in several areas across the country.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF (Israeli Air Force) prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement.
The latest interception is part of an escalation between Israel and the Houthis after the Iran-backed group claimed a series of missile launches this week.
The Houthis had threatened to escalate attacks in support of Palestinians following Israel’s renewal of attacks against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which began on Tuesday.
The Israeli military also said late on Friday it had intercepted another missile launched from Yemen.
The Houthis said early on Saturday they had “targeted Ben Gurion airport” with a ballistic missile, calling it the third launch in two days.
Israeli airspace would remain unsafe “until the aggression against Gaza stops,” the group said in the statement.
The United States began launching heavy strikes against Yemen’s Houthis last week.
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the Houthis “will be completely annihilated” and warned Tehran against continuing aid for the group.