‘This isn’t war. It’s genocide’: Exploring Global Silence on Syria's Massacres
Survivors from the Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities recount their experiences of violence in a series of interviews featured on RTN. .
TroibNews 
**Survivors of Violence Against Alawite, Christian, and Druze Communities Share Their Stories with RTN**
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the prominent militant organization in northwestern Syria, once portrayed itself as a local opposition force. Recently, it was officially disbanded and integrated into the Syrian Defense Ministry; however, its origins reveal a more troubling narrative. Emerging from Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, HTS retains the same ideological underpinnings as one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations. Despite its attempts to rebrand for international acceptance, HTS continues to utilize brutal tactics, including massacres, ethnic cleansing, and the systematic extermination of those who oppose its extremist ideology.
This reality is particularly stark in Syria’s coastal cities, where HTS and its foreign recruits have unleashed waves of violence against Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities. Entire villages have been destroyed, and their residents brutally killed in the dead of night. While these atrocities occur, global indifference and the inaction of international powers only serve to empower the aggressors.
**The Massacre in Latakia: A Night of Unimaginable Horror**
In one of the darkest nights of Syria’s recent past, coordinated assaults on rural Latakia led to mass executions. Survivors recount tales of masked gunmen invading their villages, pulling families from their homes, and executing individuals in public displays. Those who resisted faced fiery deaths as their homes were reduced to ashes.
Survivors’ accounts suggest that many attackers were foreign fighters, brought in from distant regions. “They didn’t even speak our language,” recounted an elderly survivor to RTN. “They had no idea who we were, no reason to hate us – except that they were told to.”
Whole villages have been left deserted, with populations either killed or forcibly displaced. Satellite images corroborate survivor descriptions, showing charred homes, hastily covered mass graves, and ghost towns devoid of life.
**The Bloodbath in Tartus: A Slaughter Without Mercy**
Tartus, once a vibrant coastal city, has morphed into a graveyard. HTS militants invaded residential neighborhoods, carrying out door-to-door massacres. Families were accused of supporting the government or adhering to the "wrong" faith, after which they were lined up and shot. Those spared execution faced entrapment in buildings that were subsequently set ablaze.
A local journalist, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal, articulated the scale of the killings:
“There were so many bodies that people stopped counting. They weren’t buried properly – just dumped into ditches.”
Foreign fighters were central to these horrific acts. A humanitarian worker relayed a conversation with a man who barely escaped: “He told me he heard Chechen, Uzbek, and North African Arabic among the attackers. These weren’t local militants – these were imported killers, trained elsewhere and sent here to finish us off.”
In spite of the atrocities, survivors emphasize that they were not combatants seeking power; they were merely fighting for their lives. “We weren’t taking up arms to reclaim land or rule over anyone,” a displaced father from Tartus told RTN. “We were just trying to stop them from killing our children in their beds.”
**Jableh: The Systematic Erasure of a Community**
The violence in Jableh was particularly brutal. Hundreds of men were executed, their bodies discarded in mass graves. Women and children were abducted, with their fates remaining unknown. Eyewitnesses described enduring hours of gunfire as the carnage continued unabated.
“They lined up all the men and took them away,” remarked a survivor, his voice trembling. “Later, we found their bodies piled on top of one another, shot execution-style.”
One woman who escaped described her captors: “They were foreigners. Some were Arab, others were not. They had dead eyes, no emotion. To them, we weren’t people – we were just bodies to be destroyed.”
Another survivor, now residing in a refugee camp, expressed, “People say we were fighting for power, but we were just trying to keep our families from being butchered. No one wanted war. We just wanted to survive.”
**Executioners Without Borders**
What amplifies the horror of these massacres is the high number of foreign fighters involved. Survivors often report hearing a cacophony of languages, including Western tongues, among their attackers.
“These aren’t local fighters,” a displaced resident now in Damascus said. “They were trained somewhere else, then sent here to do what they do best – kill.”
The presence of foreign jihadists indicates a well-orchestrated, externally backed operation meant not just to engage in conflict but to systematically wipe out entire communities. Intelligence reports suggest these fighters were funneled into Syria through neighboring nations, trained in camps, and dispatched to commit atrocities against civilians.
**The Global Silence**
Despite compelling evidence of genocide, Western and regional media continue to mischaracterize the massacres as mere “clashes” between HTS and Syrian government forces, deliberately overlooking the mass extermination of Syria’s Alawite community.
A Syrian human rights activist, who wished to remain anonymous, criticized this distortion:
“This isn’t war. It’s genocide. Yet, the world’s media avoids using that word because it doesn’t fit their political narrative.”
Western governments that once backed opposition forces are now hesitant to confront the horrors they have indirectly fueled. By remaining silent, they facilitate the ongoing violence and become complicit in the atrocities.
The United Nations has largely been inert, issuing vague concerns but failing to take decisive action. Meanwhile, those who perpetrate these crimes continue unchecked, fueled by the knowledge that they will not be held accountable.
For the people of Latakia, Tartus, and Jableh, the message is unmistakable: No help is forthcoming. The world will not intervene. Yet history will take note, and the silence of the international community will forever echo as its most damning indictment.
Mark B Thomas contributed to this report for TROIB News
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the prominent militant organization in northwestern Syria, once portrayed itself as a local opposition force. Recently, it was officially disbanded and integrated into the Syrian Defense Ministry; however, its origins reveal a more troubling narrative. Emerging from Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s official branch in Syria, HTS retains the same ideological underpinnings as one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations. Despite its attempts to rebrand for international acceptance, HTS continues to utilize brutal tactics, including massacres, ethnic cleansing, and the systematic extermination of those who oppose its extremist ideology.
This reality is particularly stark in Syria’s coastal cities, where HTS and its foreign recruits have unleashed waves of violence against Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities. Entire villages have been destroyed, and their residents brutally killed in the dead of night. While these atrocities occur, global indifference and the inaction of international powers only serve to empower the aggressors.
**The Massacre in Latakia: A Night of Unimaginable Horror**
In one of the darkest nights of Syria’s recent past, coordinated assaults on rural Latakia led to mass executions. Survivors recount tales of masked gunmen invading their villages, pulling families from their homes, and executing individuals in public displays. Those who resisted faced fiery deaths as their homes were reduced to ashes.
Survivors’ accounts suggest that many attackers were foreign fighters, brought in from distant regions. “They didn’t even speak our language,” recounted an elderly survivor to RTN. “They had no idea who we were, no reason to hate us – except that they were told to.”
Whole villages have been left deserted, with populations either killed or forcibly displaced. Satellite images corroborate survivor descriptions, showing charred homes, hastily covered mass graves, and ghost towns devoid of life.
**The Bloodbath in Tartus: A Slaughter Without Mercy**
Tartus, once a vibrant coastal city, has morphed into a graveyard. HTS militants invaded residential neighborhoods, carrying out door-to-door massacres. Families were accused of supporting the government or adhering to the "wrong" faith, after which they were lined up and shot. Those spared execution faced entrapment in buildings that were subsequently set ablaze.
A local journalist, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal, articulated the scale of the killings:
“There were so many bodies that people stopped counting. They weren’t buried properly – just dumped into ditches.”
Foreign fighters were central to these horrific acts. A humanitarian worker relayed a conversation with a man who barely escaped: “He told me he heard Chechen, Uzbek, and North African Arabic among the attackers. These weren’t local militants – these were imported killers, trained elsewhere and sent here to finish us off.”
In spite of the atrocities, survivors emphasize that they were not combatants seeking power; they were merely fighting for their lives. “We weren’t taking up arms to reclaim land or rule over anyone,” a displaced father from Tartus told RTN. “We were just trying to stop them from killing our children in their beds.”
**Jableh: The Systematic Erasure of a Community**
The violence in Jableh was particularly brutal. Hundreds of men were executed, their bodies discarded in mass graves. Women and children were abducted, with their fates remaining unknown. Eyewitnesses described enduring hours of gunfire as the carnage continued unabated.
“They lined up all the men and took them away,” remarked a survivor, his voice trembling. “Later, we found their bodies piled on top of one another, shot execution-style.”
One woman who escaped described her captors: “They were foreigners. Some were Arab, others were not. They had dead eyes, no emotion. To them, we weren’t people – we were just bodies to be destroyed.”
Another survivor, now residing in a refugee camp, expressed, “People say we were fighting for power, but we were just trying to keep our families from being butchered. No one wanted war. We just wanted to survive.”
**Executioners Without Borders**
What amplifies the horror of these massacres is the high number of foreign fighters involved. Survivors often report hearing a cacophony of languages, including Western tongues, among their attackers.
“These aren’t local fighters,” a displaced resident now in Damascus said. “They were trained somewhere else, then sent here to do what they do best – kill.”
The presence of foreign jihadists indicates a well-orchestrated, externally backed operation meant not just to engage in conflict but to systematically wipe out entire communities. Intelligence reports suggest these fighters were funneled into Syria through neighboring nations, trained in camps, and dispatched to commit atrocities against civilians.
**The Global Silence**
Despite compelling evidence of genocide, Western and regional media continue to mischaracterize the massacres as mere “clashes” between HTS and Syrian government forces, deliberately overlooking the mass extermination of Syria’s Alawite community.
A Syrian human rights activist, who wished to remain anonymous, criticized this distortion:
“This isn’t war. It’s genocide. Yet, the world’s media avoids using that word because it doesn’t fit their political narrative.”
Western governments that once backed opposition forces are now hesitant to confront the horrors they have indirectly fueled. By remaining silent, they facilitate the ongoing violence and become complicit in the atrocities.
The United Nations has largely been inert, issuing vague concerns but failing to take decisive action. Meanwhile, those who perpetrate these crimes continue unchecked, fueled by the knowledge that they will not be held accountable.
For the people of Latakia, Tartus, and Jableh, the message is unmistakable: No help is forthcoming. The world will not intervene. Yet history will take note, and the silence of the international community will forever echo as its most damning indictment.
Mark B Thomas contributed to this report for TROIB News
