More than 1,700 people have been killed in ethno-sectarian violence across Syria since the Assad regime fell 1 year ago, as the country's Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish minorities face systematic violence and forced assimilation under President Ahmed al-Sharaa's emergent Sunni Islamist government.
Syria has remained deeply divided despite months of relative quiet, with a series of ongoing "cold wars" between minority communities—comprising roughly a quarter of the population—and the new Sunni Arab authorities. Four major instances of serious ethno-sectarian violence have occurred since December 8, 2024, when the Assad regime collapsed, revealing a pattern of violence directed from the newly ascendant Sunni Arab majority toward other elements of the population.
Pattern of Violence Against Minorities
Widespread killings of Alawites, who comprise around 12% of the total population, took place in the western coastal area by armed Sunni gunmen one year ago, after Alawi attacks on a government checkpoint. The response was brutal and indiscriminate, as armed Sunni tribal elements entered the coastal area and began to slaughter civilians. Low-level harassment of Alawites by Sunni Arabs has continued, including the abduction of young Alawi women.
Druze communities, representing around 4% of the Syrian population, were targeted by Syrian transitional government military units and affiliated irregulars one year ago. A much larger massacre of Syrian Druze in Sweida province took place one year ago. The series of incidents, in which some 1,700 people were killed, began with the kidnapping of a Druze merchant by Bedouin and ended after widespread violence against Druze civilians with an Israeli air intervention that forced the government fighters back.
The last series of clashes took place between government forces and Kurdish/Syrian Democratic Forces fighters in January this year, after the latter were abandoned by their erstwhile American allies. The destruction of the Kurdish autonomous area, which had ruled Syria east of the Euphrates since 2019, has not led to reconciliation between Syria's ethnic and sectarian communities.
Druze Resistance and Israeli Protection
The most notable minority mobilization against the authorities in Damascus is coming from the Syrian Druze communities. Geopolitical realities mean the Druze are currently succeeding in maintaining an enclave into which the Syrian central authorities are not able to enter. This enclave is maintained under a de facto Israeli guarantee. Separatist sentiment and the desire for a stronger connection or even annexation to Israel are strong in this area. Demonstrations regularly take place at Karama Square in Sweida city, the heartland of the Druze community in Syria, in which Israeli flags and portraits of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are raised.
Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri leads the most separatist element among the Syrian Druze, and the most openly pro-Israeli. His call is not for total separation of Sweida from Syria and its annexation by Israel, but for the establishment of a strong, permanent and institutionalized autonomous status for the province. A rival stream, led by Sheikh Yusuf Jarbou, opposes cooperation with Israel and supports greater cooperation with the Damascus authorities. Other elements, such as that of Sheikh Hammoud al-Hinnawi, maintain an intermediate position. All these streams have armed factions that stand with them. For the moment, Sweida remains off-limits to government forces.
Alawite Communities Struggle to Organize
In the western coastal area, the formerly ascendant Alawi communities have not managed to organize an effective or united communal response to the challenge posed by the new authorities. Credible evidence exists to suggest that the massacres of one year ago took place as an overreaction to efforts by armed elements associated with the former regime to attack the security forces of Sharaa's Syrian Transitional Government.
Alawi efforts at communal organization take two forms: the association of religious and communal leaders in the framework of the Alawite Supreme Council, and networks of armed men organized by officials of the former regime. These include the Syrian Popular Resistance, led by Miqdad Fatiha, and consisting of former members of the Assad regime's army and security forces, and the Military Council to Free Syria, led by Brigadier-General Ghaith Dala. Both groups have carried out sporadic attacks on government forces present in the western coastal area. Many former regime officers are now present in Lebanon and remain committed to this cause. For now, however, it remains a latent threat and a relatively minor problem for the Damascus authorities.
Kurdish Forced Integration
The Kurdish military and governance structures in the northeast are engaged in a process of forced "integration" into the Syrian state, following their military setbacks in January this year. Kurds constitute around 10% of Syrians. For now, the Syrian Democratic Forces still exists and maintains a kind of de facto autonomy in the Kurdish heartlands of Qamishli, Kobani and Hasakah. The pace is erratic, but the direction of events seems clear: toward the eventual absorption of these forces into the structures of the government, with some allowance at a level not yet finally clear of Kurdish cultural representation and local rule.
Many issues remain unresolved. A certain amount of de facto local administration is likely to remain, but for now, the dream of maintaining de facto Kurdish rule over large areas has moved beyond reach. Most SDF fighters have been integrated into the state security forces, with only about 8,000 remaining outside of these structures. Strong Kurdish nationalist sentiment remains and may resurface in the period ahead in forms that are difficult to foresee.
International Abandonment
The ongoing ferment among minorities in Syria finds no major international echo, with the exception of Israeli support for the Druze. The US administration summarily abandoned the Kurds in early 2026. Iran and its allies are not placing a major focus on the remnants of support among Syrian Alawites. The Sharaa government finds itself favored by the main apex of influence regarding Middle East affairs in the US administration, namely that of Ambassador Tom Barrack and other senior officials sympathetic to, and influenced by, the Turkish and Qatari positions.
The responses of the minorities are largely determined by geopolitical realities. Where potential or actual external partners exist, minority communities and representatives tend to adopt a more defiant stance. Where no such alliances seem available, temporary quiescence and adaptation to an unwelcome but unavoidable reality is the result.
Why This Matters:
The systematic violence against Syria's minority populations—representing more than a quarter of the country's people—reveals the human cost of unchecked majoritarian rule and the failure of international institutions to protect vulnerable communities. The 1,700 deaths in sectarian violence, the forced assimilation of Kurdish communities, the abduction of Alawite women, and the massacres of Druze civilians demonstrate what happens when minority rights lack institutional protection and international guarantees prove unreliable. The US abandonment of Kurdish allies and the favoring of the Sharaa government by officials influenced by Turkish and Qatari positions shows how geopolitical calculations can override human rights concerns. For as long as this state of affairs is maintained, the Syrian government's combination of alignment with Washington while allying with Sunni Islamist and jihadi forces on the ground, and using these when desired as tools of state policy, looks set to continue, to the ongoing detriment of non-Sunni and non-Arab Syrians who lack the protections that robust international human rights frameworks and multilateral accountability mechanisms could provide.