Assadist Insurgents Fail at Counterrevolution Attempt in Syria
Assadists massacred security services and civilians, provoked retaliatory sectarian chaos, and a global disinformation was launched against Syria.
Summary
This article summarises and explains events in Syria since March 6th 2025, when Assadist insurgents launched a coordinated offensive across the Syrian coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus.
Alongside this offensive, a gargantuan disinformation campaign followed, with digital networks in (but not limited to) Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Russia, and the UAE flooding social media with fabricated “news”.
This article outlines the tactics and narratives used by the forces of disinformation to provide cover for the Assadist insurgency and its attempt to destabilise Syria.
Analysis of Fatalities
The latest report from the Syrian Network for Human Rights (“SNHR”) gives us an estimation of the casualties during the Assadist insurgency. As an organisation with a long history of verified reporting and arguably the most trusted source on human rights issues in Syria, it is a useful place to begin in establishing facts that ground the rest of this article.
As of March 11th, SNHR has documented the extrajudicial killing of 803 individuals between March 6th-10th 2025, categorised as follows:
Killings by Assadist insurgents:
383 individuals, separated into:
172 members of the General Security Services (“GSS” - under the Interior Ministry of the Syrian government).
211 civilians, including a humanitarian aid worker.
Killings by various armed factions, such as those recently integrated into the GSS (e.g. Syrian National Army factions - “SNA”), “undisciplined elements” of the GSS, and armed local residents fighting each other:
420 individuals, a figure including civilians and disarmed Assadist insurgents. Of these 420 individuals:
39 children, 49 women, and 27 medical workers, totalling 115 individuals.
Excluding women, children, and medical workers leaves around 305 males of adult age. Their status — whether insurgent or civilian — has been difficult to verify as insurgents were often dressed in civilian clothing. Many insurgents had also previously submitted to taswiya, i.e. the general amnesty, only to embed themselves in the local population on the coast to plan their insurgency.
In total, four Christian civilians have been killed during the insurgency attempt, with two killed by Assadist insurgents, one killed over a land dispute (the killer has been arrested by the GSS), and one killed by a looter stealing his car.
The majority of these killings were committed by military factions that recently integrated into the GSS such as Syrian National Army (SNA) factions, and armed local residents.
Additionally, this tally excludes general combat-related fatalities among Assadist insurgents and government security services. As documented later in this article, Assadist insurgents burned many bodies, and mass graves have been found. Government sources suggest that over 400 GSS members in total have been martyred in the fighting. As such, the final and total death toll appears to be much higher than 803 individuals.
However, these numbers are still evolving, and the most accurate number of deaths, their nature, and perpetrators will only emerge in investigations conducted over the coming month. All the numbers presented thus far are subject to change.
Assadist-Related Fatalities
Around three-quarters of the total death toll is either Assad insurgents themselves, or those killed by Assad insurgents, such as GSS members and civilians. At a minimum, 115 civilians, though the likely number is in the range of 150-200 to include male civilians, were killed in revenge massacres, mostly by local civilians, gangs who swarmed to the coast, as well as undisciplined military elements from the SNA. Several GSS individuals have also been implicated.
Analytical Errors
One major discrepancy in SNHR’s tally is that Assadist insurgents attacked multiple hospitals, but the deaths of medical workers have been entirely allotted into the ‘government forces’-associated category. We are waiting for clarification on this particular detail.
Additionally, more detail is needed to distinguish civilians killed by execution, civilians killed in crossfire, and Assadist insurgents dressed as civilians. The report currently combines all three cases into one figure.
In any case, one of the key objectives of Assadist insurgents has been to ignite wide-scale sectarian violence like that seen in Iraq after 2006. As detailed later in this article, insurgents have operated since the fall of the Assad regime on December 8th, launching up to 46 attacks on the GSS across the Syrian coast and Homs.
However, mass demonstrations have taken place across Syria in support of the government, and the government has taken several steps such as opening a commission to investigate civilian massacres committed by Assadist insurgents and forces associated with the government itself. Critically, several individuals and entire units have been arrested.
The details on why the Assadists were able to launch an insurgency, events during the insurgency, the aftermath, the government’s response, and a collection of facts and resources so you can stay better informed on Syria, follow in this article.
Contents:
Background and Events of the Assadist Insurgency on Syria’s Coast
Iran’s Involvement in the Assadist insurgency
Before going into the leadership structure and activities of the Assadist insurgency, it is important to state that their activities would not have been possible without the continued external backing of Iran.
The fall of the Assad regime resulted in the loss of Iran’s land-and-air routes to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a massive blow to the Iranian “axis of resistance” and its prestige, and the loss of tens of billions of dollars in “investment” that Iran had ploughed into the Assad regime over the past 13 years to keep it alive. Iran will not so easily write off that investment.
The first indication of Iran’s posture towards post-Assad Syria was made on December 22nd, when the Twitter/X account of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei tweeted about Syrian youth “having nothing to lose”.
On February 26th, Turkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan made statements to Al-Jazeera Arabic suggesting that Iran risks instability itself if it attempts to stir instability in Syria. This likely indicates that Turkish intelligence had understood Iranian assets were fomenting strife in Syria. Tensions heightened between Turkiye and Iran after Fidan’s statement. Perhaps most ominously, days later Khamenei’s advisor, Ali Akbar Velayati, responded to Fidan’s statement, saying that ‘there was a high possibility of civil war breaking out in Syria at any moment.’
Iranian instigation against the new Syrian government is also an attempt to re-galvanise support among the various factions of the ‘axis of resistance’. Hezbollah’s capabilities have been severely degraded in its war with Israel, and in Iraq, there is growing sentiment that Iran’s domination of the country has mired it in economic, political, and sectarian chaos to no obvious benefit. A new enemy would refocus the Axis against what it perceives to be a weaker, and perhaps closer, enemy: A Sunni-led state in Syria.
The Iranian proxy group in south Syria, the ‘Syrian Islamic Resistance Front’ (“Uli al-Baas”), began being promoted for the first time by Iranian media agencies on March 5th, a day before the Assadist insurgency began on Syria’s coast. Iran may use this group to launch attacks against Israel, inviting a response that Syria’s government is unlikely to be able to respond to, thus squeezing Syria between Israel and Iran.
Another avenue that Iran has pursued is through ties with high-ranking officials of the former Assad regime in hopes of helping them sustain an insurgency against the Syrian government.
Leaders of the Assadist Insurgency
The self-purported leaders of the Assadist insurgency are two figures from the former Assad regime: Ghiyath Dalla, and Miqdad Fathiya.
Ghiyath Dalla is the overall leader of insurgent operations. He was Maher Al-Assad’s right-hand man, the brother of Bashar Al-Assad and leader of the notorious Fourth Division that committed widespread abuses against the Syrian people, not limited to: extortion, bribery, torture, executions, and massacres. Additionally, the division had transformed into a key node in the Assad regime’s multi-billion dollar captagon empire that had flooded the Middle East with cheap drugs.
Dalla himself was responsible for numerous sieges and massacres across Syria, particularly in the siege on Ghouta which reduced children to eating grass, and would face several sarin gas attacks by the regime, as this outlined in this video report on Dalla’s background and involvement with the Assad regime, leading up to his declaration of a ‘military council’ on March 6th which set off the Assadist insurgency.
Dalla’s ties to Iran are obscure, but Turkish media has reported on the existence of an operations room that had been set up in Iraq to coordinate between IRGC officers, Assad regime officers who had fled to Iraq after the fall of the regime (among them, Dalla himself), Iraq’s Hashd Al-Sha’bi (an umbrella organisation for Shia militias in Iraq, and an Iranian proxy), and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Maher Al-Assad, Ghiyath’s former boss in the Fourth Division, is rumoured to be somewhere between Iraq and Iran. More importantly, Dalla was reported to have attended this operations room and smuggled himself back into Syria to the coast via SDF-controlled territory.
The other key leader of the Assadist insurgency is Miqdad Fatiha, a notorious gangster in the Assad regime known for the torture and execution of Syrians and the desecration of their bodies–pictures Miqdad proudly took and circulated in his era of impunity. After the fall of the regime, he established an insurgent group called the ‘Coastal Shield Brigade’, conducting hit-and-run attacks on GSS forces, with a total of 46 such attacks recorded since December in the lead-up to events on March 6th.
Miqdad made numerous videos in which he threatened an uprising against the new Syrian government. In one of these videos, Miqdad threatened fellow Alawites for calling him a criminal, claiming that he had ‘screenshots of their posts and profiles’ and would visit them to give them a “kiss” while making execution symbols with his hand. In another video published in December soon after the fall of the Assad regime, he threatened a “sea of blood”. In a further video published over the weekend, Miqdad acknowledged “setbacks” after the GSS and Syrian military had largely put down the insurgency, but promised to return. Of note is Miqdad’s choice of uniform in the numerous videos he has posted, nearly always copying the GSS’ black uniform, most likely to undertake false flag attacks that could later be blamed on the government. Miqdad is currently considered to reside in the borderlands near Lebanon.
Recent arrests by the government in the coastal areas reveal even more Assadist figures with involvement in the ongoing insurgency. These arrests include:
Salem Iskandar Tarraf, the former head of the State Security Branch in Daraa, is notorious for the imprisonment and torture of prisoners. His brother Ghassan Iskander Tarraf was the last appointed commander of the Assad regime's Republican Guard.
Major General Ibrahim Huwaija, the former head of the General Intelligence Service in Syria under Hafez Al-Assad who planned hundreds of assassinations, including that of Kamal Bey Jumblatt, the father of Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.
The Timeline of Events
Iran’s support to figures like Ghiyath Dalla and Miqdad Fatiha set the stage for the Assadist insurgency that erupted on Thursday, March 6th, when they ambushed a patrol of 13 GSS members. At least five of them were captured and executed via headshots.
Early warnings by Alawite activists on the coast warned that this was not a one-off attack, but the start of an insurgency, supported by many Alawite youth who took up arms to support the insurgency. That night, insurgents launched an assault on predominantly Sunni neighbourhoods in Jableh, a mixed Sunni-Alawite town on the coast. Sunni civilians in Jableh held off the first wave of Assadist assaults and attempts to besiege the town’s hospital (now out of service), without which they might have taken full control. In this assault, Alawites who were known for being anti-regime were also targeted by these insurgents because they were viewed as “traitors”. Crucially, armed Sunni civilians moved to protect their Alawite neighbours against reprisal attacks, without which the death toll would have been much higher in Jableh.
Outside the coast, Turkish convoys entered Syria, with airstrikes on PKK-SDF positions east of the Euphrates, and drone activity over northern Aleppo. This was likely done to ward off a potential joining of the insurgency by Kurdish forces. Syrian government convoys also moved to the Lebanese border to ensure that Hezbollah did not conduct operations into Syrian territory that could aid the insurgency. Additionally, government forces stationed at Al-Tanf on the eastern border with Iraq also began patrols on the border, likely to ward off infiltration by Iraq’s Shi’ite militias.
Insurgent attacks surged across the coast, targeting hospitals, naval ports, electricity, gas, and petroleum plants and refineries, and highways where dozens of civilians were indiscriminately massacred as insurgents attempted to cut the coast off from the rest of Syria. In total, seven hospitals were besieged and numerous medical personnel were killed. The insurgency planned to establish command and control over the entire coast, perhaps as a prelude to a wide-ranging offensive against the rest of Syria.
As news of the insurgency spread, Syrians took to the streets that evening in major cities across Syria in support of the government and demanded an immediate response to put down the insurgency. In the early hours of Friday, March 7th, various armed individuals, gangs, and factions flooded into Latakia in response to the insurgency, and this is when the first reports of revenge massacres against Alawites began to surface. Long-repressed sectarian grievances exploded, and Friday was marked by general chaos as looting spread and armed groups began executing what they deemed as “rival civilians”. The overwhelming response nevertheless succeeded in stymying the Assadist insurgency’s momentum, and as Friday evening approached, it became clear that they had failed in their attempt to take over the coast. However, the true scale of crimes committed against civilians also began to be realised.
Contrary to popular reporting, the government had urged people to stay at home and allow the GSS and military to handle the situation. In the first speech President Ahmad Al-Shara addressed to the Syrian nation on Friday, he urged people to avoid going to conflict zones and leave the work to the GSS and military. He also reminded them of the need to look after prisoners and avoid reprisals.
The Syrian government however, lacked the capacity to enforce these orders on short notice, and there are still constraints with command-and-control with recently integrated factions into the Syrian military, such as with the various SNA factions who had immediately mobilised to the coast, including Jaysh Al-Sharqiya, Sultan Sulayman Shah, and Hamza brigades.
On Saturday, March 8th, the government announced the suspension of operations against Assadist insurgents so that it could establish a proper security zone in Latakia and Tartus provinces. Through the weekend, the government began apprehending the individuals and groups involved in crimes like looting, individual killings, and massacres. At that stage, the death toll was in the hundreds among government forces, Assadist insurgents, and both Sunni and Alawite civilians.
The Syrian Government’s Response
On Sunday March 9th, Al-Shara recorded a second video address in the aftermath of events on the coast, saying that anyone who committed violations against civilians will be held accountable, regardless of their faction.
Al-Shara also announced an independent commission headed by a committee composed of five judges, a security officer, and a human rights lawyer, tasked with meeting locals, gathering evidence on violations committed against civilians, public institutions, security personnel, and present this to the courts and pursue prosecution against all who committed crimes. The committee’s spokesman, Professor Yasser Al-Farhan emphasised the neutrality and independence of the commission, and that their work would last for no longer than 30 days to ensure justice comes sooner rather than later.
The storm of disinformation detailed later in this article has obscured rapid developments in Syria. The government has quickly moved to restore order, suppress the Assadist insurgency, and arrest numerous perpetrators of violations ranging from theft to massacres of civilians.
Some of those arrested are listed below, and campaigns to make further arrests are ongoing:
A man named Hussein Wassouf and his gang were arrested after they took advantage of the chaos and committed violations against civilians.
Two men who filmed themselves riding through a village and shooting and killing an elderly man have been arrested and referred to the judiciary.
A man who executed a civilian was arrested and referred to the judiciary.
Four individuals were arrested for committing crimes against civilians and referred to the judiciary.
Al-Shara also personally called Hanadi Zahlout, an anti-Assad regime activist and member of the Alawite community who lost three brothers to sectarian violence, and promised an investigative committee and justice. Zahlout addressed Syrians, calling for healing and justice, and also posted the following on Facebook:
“President Ahmed Al-Sharaa called me today to offer his condolences, and in his call he expressed his condolences to my family and to all the families of the victims, and he promised to hold the perpetrators accountable through an investigation committee that includes a group of judges. I express my support for the committee and we are awaiting the conclusion of its investigation and we are ready to cooperate and provide our testimonies so that justice can take its course and the law can prevail in our country and on our land.”
Further steps were taken by the Syrian government and GSS:
In Homs, general security forces formed lines to protect Alawite neighbourhoods from sectarian violence as provocateurs attempted to take advantage of the situation. For months, the GSS has patrolled these neighbourhoods to keep the peace.
GSS have strengthened their presence and are patrolling neighbourhoods to prevent looters from taking advantage of the chaos.
Families are being evacuated from areas where Assadist insurgents are operating to ensure their safety.
On request from dignitaries in Suweyda, students from the province who were studying at Latakia University were evacuated by GSS and escorted to Suweyda.
The leader of the military operations room, Colonel Hassan Abdul-Ghani, has toured Alawite districts to provide reassurance to civilians and asked them to report crimes so the government can hold them to account.
Challenges ahead for the Government
Looking ahead, the insurgency has highlighted several issues facing the new government: problems of intelligence, assimilating weapons and factions into the military of defence and disciplining those forces, communications issues, sectarian mistrust, and that the Assadist insurgency has not been fully eradicated and continues to linger.
The Assadist insurgency was an intelligence failure of the Syrian government. Although it had conducted operations across the coast for months, and Alawite activists had reported on activities within their communities indicating insurgent activities, the military presence on the coast was not significantly increased. That hundreds of GSS personnel were killed in several days of fighting shows a general state of unpreparedness that the government will likely rectify in the coming days and weeks ahead by establishing a greater military presence on the coast.
The uncontrolled entry of various individuals, gangs, and armed factions into conflict zones demonstrates that the Ministry of Defence’s command and control over arms and personnel is still not adequate. This is largely a function of time. The government has to fold numerous armed factions divided by region, faith, race, and interests into one professional military force, and it has only been three months since the fall of the Assad regime. A tenuous balance holds as the government tries to integrate these factions into the state under the military of defence, but this would fall apart if there was open confrontation, such as by pursuing those who committed crimes against civilians, whose factions may choose to protect them.
Sectarian massacres amplified by disinformation are a significant setback in attempting to repair community relations between Alawites and Sunnis, not just within communities across the Syrian coast, but across the whole nation. There is still a sense of denial among Alawite communities about the role their members have played in sustaining the Assad regime as the regime itself sectarianised the nation with as many as 90% of its officer corps hailing from among them.
The commission established by Al-Shara to investigate events on the coast and its outcome will heavily affect the legitimacy of the Syrian government. If it is seen as failing to provide justice, it will be seen as a serious failure. The government has to show that it is serious about building a state of law.
Communication will play a vital role in doing this. Al-Shara published two video addresses between Friday 7th March and Sunday 9th March. No doubt the situation called for a display of national leadership, but it also highlights the continued issues the government has faced with establishing appropriate lines of communication with the public. Official statements continue to be sourced through Telegram, although there is an increasing presence on Twitter/X. There is no professional Arabic and English-language state broadcasting service, nor presidential spokesmen in either language. Syria’s information ecosystem is being completely dominated by disinformation networks running out of countries like Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and even the UAE and Russia.
Most importantly, the Assadist insurgency is down but not out. The insurgency failed to achieve most of its objectives, except for increasing communal mistrust between Alawites and Sunnis. However, its main leaders, Dalla and Fatiha, remain at large and are likely reorganising for their next attacks. Iran will continue to support them and look for other avenues to destabilise Syria.
Analysis of the Order of Operations & Disinformation
So far, we have looked at the SNHR report to establish some facts, the background and characters involved in the Assadist insurgency, a rough timeline of events between March 6th and March 10th, and the Syrian government’s response to all of this.
The following half of this article will look at a short list of some of the verified crimes committed by Assadist insurgents, the sources of disinformation, what minorities are actually saying, and what resources you can follow to keep up to date with events in Syria.
Some of the Crimes Committed by the Assadist Insurgency
In one of the slain Assadist’s insurgent’s homes in Latakia, photographs were retrieved depicting dismembered bodies. I will not post them in this article. You can check the thread here. Note: one of the means of disposal of prisoners within the Assad regime’s industrial torture complex was the dismemberment of bodies and their liquidation or random displacement in mass graves, which is why to date about 100,000 people who went into these prisons remain “missing”.
Two Syrian Christians were killed in separate attacks by Assadist insurgents while driving on coastal highways.
A family of three, with a license plate from Idlib, burned to death on a highway after their vehicle was attacked by Assadist insurgents.
An Al-Jazeera reporter was shot in the arm as Assadist insurgents laid siege to highways across the coast and machine-gunned any vehicle.
Over 400 GSS members were killed fighting against Assadist insurgents on the coast. Of the 400, at least 172 GSS members were killed in field executions, burned to death, and even buried in mass graves.
An Assadist insurgent was caught hiding weapons while dressed in civilian clothing.
An Assadist insurgent famous for taunting people in besieged Idlib with “we’re behind you” captured in civilian clothing in Latakia.
The Sources of Disinformation
The curious case of SOHR
If SNHR’s estimate of the number of those killed extrajudicially is 803 individuals, where has the wildly inflated and incorrect figure of 700+ Alawite civilians alone come from?
In the initial rush of disinformation, the ‘Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ (“SOHR”, which has a record of dubious reporting over the past 13 years) was the original source for the claim that 700+ Alawite civilians were killed in sectarian massacres on the coast. This claim was not—and could not— have been corroborated by any other source in Syria–or outside of it, made in the middle of the insurgency when the ‘fog of war’ was at its thickest.
In comparison to SNHR (don’t get them mixed up) which runs a collaborative process with numerous human rights organisations and fact-checkers around the world, SOHR is run by one man, edited by one man, sourced by one man, and published by one man: Ossama Suleiman, also known as ‘Rami Abdul Rahman’, originally from the city of Baniyas, Syria. In 2000, Ossama moved to Britain and settled in Coventry, where he set up SOHR and has continued to run it from there since 2006. For all intents and purposes, Ossama and SOHR are one and the same.
In any case, since then, Ossama has positioned himself among international news agencies as a primary source of information on Syria. He claims to have an extensive list of sources on the ground in Syria, yet there has never been any verification of his sources. Furthermore, Ossama has never provided his methods for verifying information that he publishes.
An article on SOHR’s website dated March 9th states that ‘385 civilians were martyred on March 8th in different circumstances’. This article then goes on to exclusively list ‘civilians executed by forces associated with the Ministry of Defence and internal security’, with no mention of civilians executed by Assadist insurgents. This figure for civilian deaths on March 8th alone is nearly as great as SNHR’s estimate for the total number of civilians killed between March 6th and 10th.
This is not the first time that SOHR has engaged in dubious reporting. As early as 2014, SOHR has been called out for its dubious reporting and has long been discounted by Syrians as a valid source for reporting on Syria.
What is curious is that Ossama and the one-man shop that is SOHR, with its long history of dubious reporting, continues to be one of the key figures cited by international news agencies about human rights issues in Syria. Owing to his extensive network with international news agencies, Ossama was able to immediately distribute his initial claim of massacres of 745 Alawite civilians, providing the first plank of disinformation through these news agencies that quickly spiralled into social media claims of upwards of 7000+ people from various minority groups having been killed in just a few days.
Below are only some of the major news agencies that published SOHR’s claim of 745 Alawite civilians being massacred without verification. No public comments on the use of SOHR as a source, or retractions of these reports, have been made by any of these prominent news agencies.
On March 8th, AFP published this article:
On March 8th, Reuters published this article:
On March 9th, L’Orient Le Jour published this article:
On March 9th, BBC News published this article:
A Further List of Disinformation Narratives & Claims
SOHR’s claims became a catalyst as digital networks promoted thousands of individual pieces of disinformation since March 6th. In the following (non-exhaustive) list, which includes Twitter/X threads, there are dozens of these examples, but this represents a mere fraction of the disinformation that has circulated over the past week.
A long thread by Verify Syria debunked 17 different pieces of disinformation.
A long thread (by me) showing 10 different pieces of disinformation claiming various people were dead—only for them to appear on social media to dismiss the “fact” of their deaths. This is a fraction of the disinformation that occurred over the past week, as hundreds of random profiles from social media were lifted and used as examples of “victims” massacred by the GSS and other forces.
This picture claiming to depict GSS looting Alawite homes in Jableh, Latakia, is an old picture from Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria showing Assadist militias looting homes.
One of the more egregious examples of disinformation is the claim that the family depicted in this photograph were killed by the GSS. This is one of the most famous cases of the Assad regime’s brutality in the revolution. The family of Dr. Rania Abbasi (the mother depicted in this family photo, and a national chess champion) was abducted by Assad forces on March 9th 2013. Both Dr Rania and her husband were sent to prison, likely the infamous ‘Palestine Branch’ or Sednaya prison. The father was reportedly tortured to death. Dr. Rania’s fate is still unknown, but she likely faced the same fate. Their six children were scattered across orphanages with their names changed to avoid being traced, and relatives have been working for the past three months to find them with little success thus far. Read-more-here.
A Telegram channel called ‘Jabal Alawiyeen’ (Alawite Mountains) with 15,000+ subscribers published a voice recording urging people to lie to UN observers coming to the coast. The UN put out a statement later clarifying that no UN observers were coming.
The spokeswoman for the ‘Syrian Democratic Council’ (a civilian front for the SDF, which is a military front for the PKK), to the USA, made claims that women were raped and killed by the GSS, something that has not been reported or corroborated anywhere else. Of note is that the spokeswoman is part of an organisation that has proudly published videos of young boys recruited as fighters.
George Galloway posted a video purporting to show the execution of a Christian by the GSS. Warning: the video is graphic. This is an old video from 2015-16 showing fighters from a formerly Damascus-based anti-Assad regime faction, ‘Jaysh Al-Islam’, executing an ISIS fighter. In the video posted by Galloway, you can see the ‘Jaysh Al-Islam’ logo in the top left. A Facebook post made in 2018 by a Jaysh Al-Islam supporter provides further details, reminiscing over this "old execution” of an ISIS fighter called 'Abu Ali Khabiya'.
Perhaps the strangest permutation of disinformation narratives on Syria was the sudden rise of claims of mass massacres of Christian civilians. What began as reports of the deaths of dozens of civilians became supercharged by the SOHR report claiming the deaths of 700+ Alawite civilians, which then became 7000+ Christians, Alawites, and later on Kurds and Druze. Numerous figures on social media, including major American figures like Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk, began to spread this disinformation, with an emphasis on “massacres of Christians in Syria”.
In total, four Christian civilians have been killed during the insurgency attempt, with two killed by Assadist insurgents (as referenced earlier in this article), one killed over a land dispute (the killer has been arrested by the GSS), and one killed by a looter stealing his car.
In the next section of this article, I have collected responses to these claims from Syria’s minorities, including the Christian churches, priests, and lay citizens.
How Have Syrian Minorities Responded?
On the ground in Syria, various individuals and minority communities have come out to try and make their voices heard against the tidal wave of disinformation.
The Shia communities of Nubl and Zahraa in north Aleppo came out in support of the government and operations against Assadist insurgents.
Spyridon Tanous, a prominent Syrian Orthodox priest has repeatedly emphasised that news on “Christian massacres” promoted by figures like Elon Musk is disinformation.
A gathering in Aleppo of Christian leaders from various denominations voicing their support for the government and ongoing security campaigns against Assadist insurgents.
Asaad Sam Hanna, A Syrian-American Christian, wrote an article on Twitter/X, clarifying that claims of oppression and/or massacres against Christians in Syria are disinformation.
A statement by Bishop Hanna Jallouf, head of Syria’s Catholic Church, affirming their support for the territorial integrity of the Syrian state, unity of its people, and support for the government in their fight against Assadist insurgents:
The Council for Christian Churches in Latakia published statements denying the rampant disinformation that Christians were being killed, and urged people to verify their information:
The Turkmen Syrian Council affirmed their support to the Syrian government and its efforts against Assadist insurgents:
As Syrian journalists flooded into the coast, interviews were held with Alawite citizens, who called on the GSS to restore order and for Assadist insurgents to be brought to justice. One of the elderly women in the video details how her son, a cancer patient, was executed by Assadist insurgents, and his house and car burned down.
Levant24 has conducted multiple interviews with Christian residents in Latakia, dismissing claims of oppression/massacres of Christians in Syria.
Resources You Should Follow on Syria
Below is a list of resources, predominantly composed of Syrian journalists on the ground, Syrian news publications, and analysts and journalists with deep track records of impartial and professional reporting on Syria.
My recommendation to you is to set up a Twitter/X account and stay informed by following these sources. Many of them exclusively communicate in Arabic, but in the age of Google Translate and other increasingly powerful AI translation tools, this is not a problem.
The below list is not exhaustive and I am sure I have missed some fantastic sources, but it is a start that will put you ahead of 99% of the media information ecosystem on Syria. Mainstream media outlets have largely been unable to keep up with events in Syria, shoehorning them into predefined editorial narratives. You will be ahead of the news cycle by a week in most scenarios, will witness how disinformation networks come alive and how they contrast to real reporting, and can “inoculate” yourself in the case of future disinformation wars that will no doubt continue to hammer Syria as the country attempts to rebuild itself.
You can also follow #FactCheckSyria on Twitter/X, where Syrian activists are actively combating disinformation.
Syrian Journalists & Analysts:
Nour Golan — a Syrian journalist reporting from south Syria, primarily on Quneitra, on the border with Israel. You can follow his account here.
Omar Hariri - A Syrian journalist reporting from south Syria, primarily on Daraa province. You can follow his account here.
Zein al-Abidin — A Syrian journalist reporting from east Syria, primarily on Deir Ezzour province. You can follow his account here.
Nabil Sallam — A Syrian journalist reporting from Homs, primarily in its western Al-Qusayr region on the Lebanese border. You can follow his account here.
Omar Madaniah — A Syrian journalist. You can follow his account here.
Qasem Al-Qtaish — A Syrian journalist. You can follow his account here.
Fadel Abdul Ghany — Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR). You can follow his account here.
Omar Abu Layla — A Syrian journalist and researcher. You can follow his account here.
Qutaiba Idlbi — A Syrian-American analyst and researcher. You can follow his account here.
Qusay Noor — A Syrian journalist in Istanbul. You can follow his account here.
Fared Al Mahlool — A Syrian journalist. You can follow his account here.
Syrian News Agencies:
Levant 24 — A Syrian news agency. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Enab Baladi — A Syrian news agency. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Majalla — A leading Arab news agency, with significant coverage on Syria. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Suwayda 24 — A Syrian news agency focused on the southern Suwayda region. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Deir Ezzor 24 — A Syrian news agency focused on the Deir Ezzour region in east Syria. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Halab Today — A Syrian news agency with a special focus on Aleppo. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Anti-Disinformation Platforms:
Verify Syria — A Syrian media platform dedicated to combating misinformation. You can visit their website here, and their Twitter/X account here.
Foreign Analysts & Journalists:
Charles Lister — A prominent analyst and researcher on events in Syria. You can follow his Twitter/X account here.
Qalaat Al Mudiq — A meticulous archiver of events in Syria for a decade now. You can follow his Twitter/X account here.
Shelly Kittleson — A journalist currently on the ground in Syria. You can follow her Twitter/X account here.
Gregory Waters — An analyst and researcher currently on the ground in Syria. You can follow his Twitter/X account here.
Rena Netjes — A Dutch journalist who has repeatedly reported on the ground within Syria, with a special focus on the northeast region. You can follow her Twitter/X account here.
Wassim Nasr — A French journalist with extensive on-the-ground reporting in Syria. You can follow his Twitter/X account here.
Links Dump
“We Wished for Night to Never Fall”: Forgotten Massacre in Syria’s Coast
Lifting sanctions on Syria seems mad, until you consider the alternative
Chaos and War Crimes on Syria’s Coast in Wake of Assad-Remnant Terror Campaign
New Syrian leader Sharaa says killings of Alawites threaten unity, vows justice
Despite coastal massacres, there is still hope for the new Syria
With Assad's Fall, Syria Embraces Freedom but Faces Huge Challenges
Incredible analysis.
Good article.