Following a Christmas tree burning that heightened fears that the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could signal crackdowns on Syria’s religious minorities, hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus.
Video confirmed by NBC News shows hooded individuals burning a tree at a traffic circle in the Christian-majority town of Al-Suqalabiyah, close to the city of Hamain in central Syria, on Monday night, seemingly sparking the protests.
A social media video that NBC News confirmed showed crowds in Damascus cheering. Lift up your cross, lift it! & Suqalabiyah, we will be at your side till the end!
Just two weeks after his rebel group launched a swift onslaught that overthrew Assad, Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been attempting to portray his leadership as one that will protect minorities in the Sunni-majority nation.
The culprits were identified as belonging to the Islamist organization Ansar al-Tawhid by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a human rights monitoring group located in the United Kingdom.
Christian Talal Abdullah, a former Al-Suqaylabiyah member of the Syrian National Council, claimed that the fire sparked “fights with stones” and confrontations between the culprits and locals.
In a phone interview with NBC News on Tuesday, he claimed that an HTS official informed him and other residents of the area that the behavior was unacceptable and that they will “punish those responsible” and replace the Christmas.
“That night, and under the rain, they set up a new tree in the same spot, decorated it, and arrested the attackers,” he said, explaining that the government had pledged to help the community “fight against such unacceptable actions.”
Members of religious minorities, including Christians, Alawites, Druze, and Yazidis, are concerned about HTS’s control in Syria, where the Assad administration was generally despised but Sunni extremism has left severe wounds.
HTS is still classified as a terrorist organization worldwide due to its origins in extremist Islamist movements. Al-Sharaa, on the other hand, has pledged to guide Syria into a period of transformation by presenting an all-inclusive vision in which every ethnic and religious group is represented.
A public holiday for “all employees in government institutions” for Christmas Day and December 26 was announced by the Syrian Presidency of the Council of Ministers on Tuesday.
Al-Sharaa has also made an effort to distance himself from his history as a jihadist commander who has ties to Al Qaeda and the terrorist organization Islamic State.
The United States said it was ready to lift the $10 million bounty it had placed on al-Sharaa’s head after negotiations between HTS and U.S. diplomats in Dasmacus last week, during which al-Sharaa pledged to make sure terrorist organizations do not threaten the United States and its allies.
Additionally, the Biden administration has stated that it is considering removing HTS off its list of terrorist organizations; however, this will rely on whether it believes it can work with al-Sharaa and his new leadership group.
Last Tuesday, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, stated, “We’re watching what they do now.” As they set up temporary governmental bodies, they wish to be inclusive in their interactions with various groups inside Syria, stating unequivocally that they respect women and minorities and that they would not let Syria to serve as a base for terrorist organizations.
On Monday, the U.S. military announced that it had carried out an attack in Syria that left two members of the Islamic State dead and one injured.
“The terrorists were moving a truckload of weapons which were destroyed during the strike,” according to X. “This strike occurred in an area formerly controlled by the Syrian regime and Russians.”
As part of the new leader’s continuous attempts to create a unified state following 53 years of Assad family dominance, al-Sharaa reached an agreement with rebel factions to disband their organizations and combine them under the nation’s defense ministry.
The Syrian Civil Defense said Tuesday’s killing of two persons and the wounding of four more in the eastern Aleppo city of Manbij highlighted the urgent necessity for a unified and disciplined Syrian security force.
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