Syria’s Damascus Two Islamist fighters, equipped with assault guns, pious beards, and pointed inquiries, arrived on the door of Father Rafaat Abul Nasser’s Lady of Damascus Church less than two days after President Bashar al-Assad’s administration fell.
On Wednesday, the pastor told NBC News, “I’m telling you, I wasn’t afraid.” since St. Paul exhorts us to have faith in the Lord.
As they walked around the elaborate shrine, the troops took pictures of the icons and inquired about the significance of the crucifix and cross. After that, they departed. And that was mercifully it, Nasser remarked.
However, the spooky visit is representative of the apprehensive optimism that permeates this new Syria, where many people question whether the new government would actually implement the liberalism and inclusivity it claims to promote.
The United States and a large portion of Europe continue to classify Hayat Tahriral-Sham, the group that spearheaded the assault on Damascus, as a terrorist organization. Hayat Tahriral-Sham and its leaders were previously intimately associated with both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
However, years before it really took control of Damascus, the group renounced its ties to the more radical jihadist organizations. Last Saturday, the group ended nearly 14 years of civil war by capturing the capital with little opposition.
In an interview published this week, the recently appointed interim prime minister, Mohammad al-Bashir, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, “We will protect the rights of all people and all sects in Syria precisely because we are Islamic.”
Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of the gang, seems to have changed both his appearance and his beliefs. He now sports a shorter beard, basic military attire, and occasionally even business suits.
Along with ensuring rights for women, minority groups, and former regime supporters, he retired his alias, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
However, there is still concern about the new leadership. Although some human rights organizations have praised HTS’s good rhetoric, they have also called attention to the organization’s subpar human rights record in the areas it has recently controlled, most notably the northwest Syrian province of Idlib.
HTS allegedly allowed confessions gained through torture and killed or forcefully disappeared perceived opponents and their families, according to a U.S. State Department assessment on human rights practices in Syria published last year.
Citing another research by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry for Syria, it also stated that HTS held captives incommunicado in covert detention facilities known as security prisons.
For Syria’s religious minority, who were frequently set against one another under Assad’s tyrannical rule and the civil war years, its development is especially upsetting.
Although over 75% of Syrians identify as Sunni Muslims, the remainder of the population is a diverse mix of Shiite Muslims and the Alawite minority sect, which theologians believe to be a subset of that branch of Islam and of which Assad was a part.
The majority of the population is composed of Christians and the Druze, a small Middle Eastern group that heavily emphasizes philosophy and spiritual purity while drawing its ideas from Islam.
The road from Damascus to Lebanon was congested earlier this week with thousands of Syrians escaping in the opposite direction, perhaps unwilling to wait to see how tolerant the new leadership would be.
Ammar Shahbander, 32, a Shiite philosophy professor from Aleppo who was waiting to cross the border with his wife and two young children, claimed that those who took over the government were terrorists. A civil war might break out. I have kids. I naturally worry about them.
Shahbander claimed that his fear of HTS and its leader was not uncommon. He stated that his first concern is the Syrian civilian population, which is being overwhelmed by sectarianism, retaliation, and readily available weapons after almost 14 years of a terrifying civil war waged by common people.
He claimed that HTS might be able to manage all of these factors. Individual behavior is present today. They might murder me or someone else. Can Jolani rein in this conduct?
Al-Jolani and al-Bashir, his new prime minister, have also stated that one of their main goals is to accept Syrian refugees from elsewhere. However, other Syrians living outside are hesitant to return to a Syria that has been not only wrecked but also taken over by fundamentalists, despite their good liberal messaging.
Aleppo-based Abdulwahed Danou, an Arabic instructor, stated via text message last week that Assad’s overthrow had halted his refugee application in the Netherlands. Plans to repatriate Syrian refugees have already been declared by a number of European governments.
I’m completely lost. He wrote, “My head is spinning.” I don’t want extremists or jihadists to govern over me.
The rank and file of HTS has a deep conservatism in both appearance and behavior, even when they make all the correct sounds. A group of fighters wearing camouflage took advantage of the well-kept grass at a traffic junction close to Nasser’s church.
As well-wishers crossed the busy junction to offer them snacks and congratulations, they chatted candidly about their struggle for freedom. Minorities in Syria had nothing to worry under the new government, according to one of the young warriors.
When asked what he intended to do following the revolution, 21-year-old soldier Khatab Shawi responded, “I will stay in my path, the path of jihad.” Or I’ll visit our brothers in Gaza, and we’ll die as martyrs for God’s cause. We hope to visit Gaza after this conflict.
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