By Nohad Topalian | 2023-09-18

BEIRUT -- As Syria becomes more deeply mired in economic crisis, even the country's Mediterranean coast -- a regime bastion that is the ancestral home of the al-Assad family -- is seeing an increase in anti-regime sentiment.

Members of the Alawite sect, a minority group to which Syrian president Bashar al-Assad belongs, began to stage timid anti-regime protests some time ago in the cities and hinterland of Latakia, Tartous and Baniyas.

Anti-Assad graffiti appeared on some walls in these areas, and videos of Alawite activists demanding al-Assad's departure from power circulated online.

These expressions of dissent were quickly suppressed, with the regime carrying out an arrest campaign against opposition activists and detaining Baniyas resident Ayman Fares and Majid Dawai of Salanfa in rural Latakia, among others.

In a video that circulated online, Dawai called on al-Assad to "get out of Syria and step down before we kick you out with military boots."

Alawite dissidents waging campaigns against the al-Assad regime from abroad said the Alawite opposition inside Syria emerged after sect members discovered the regime's lies and its portrayal of the revolution as an Alawite-Sunni conflict.

Along with other Syrians, Alawites suffer severe deprivation, with some complaining that the regime has exploited their hunger and brought in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hizbullah to subjugate them.

Syrian Alawite opposition to the al-Assad regime "arose during the first months of the outbreak of the 2011 revolution and its justified demands," Syrian Alawite opposition lawyer Issa Ibrahim told Al-Fassel.

Many Alawites opposed the regime's actions and "consider the al-Assad regime to be a mafia that occupies power and the state," he said.

But they were dissuaded from breaking ranks with the regime by sectarian rhetoric on both sides.

However, the collapse of the state and state services, and the Alawites' gradual realization of the nature of the conflict among all sides, "contributed to the return of the oppositional Alawite voice," he said.

The voice of Alawite regime opponents "was not picked up by the media and will not be, until after the crystallization of a general Syrian opposition narrative and a politically effective popular activist movement throughout all of Syria," he said.

Al-Assad's influence fades

For many years, Ibrahim said, the al-Assad regime deprived the coast of all services and left Alawite areas without industrial and commercial facilities.

"The dramatic deterioration of al-Assad's popular base among Alawites, even among the groups that benefited from him, drove him to seek the help of Iran, its IRGC and Hizbullah to protect him from the popular uprising," he said.

"Some time ago, the regime established observation points and security and intelligence force checkpoints in Alawite areas," he said.

Ibrahim accused the IRGC, Syrian regime and allied militias of bombarding some opposition Alawite villages with weapon-laden drones, which they try to claim are flown by terrorist groups in Idlib.

The Alawite opposition "is counting on the emergence of a class of Syrian Alawite political elites to take action in international media and political forums," he said.

"At that time, what they have to say will come as a surprise to everyone in terms of their opposition to al-Assad and the woes he has brought upon not only Alawites but all Syrians."

Opposition to the al-Assad regime "is growing on the Syrian coast" in some circles that now understand the uprising was fueled from the outset by the regime's tyranny, said Syrian opposition writer and journalist Bassam Youssef.

But these dissenters will not be effective opponents to the regime unless they are part of an unequivocal opposition entity that is led by one of their own, said Youssef, who hails from the Syrian coast.

Growing Alawite opposition

The Alawite opposition -- which is being repressed by al-Assad, IRGC-aligned militias and Lebanese Hizbullah -- will intensify, Youssef told Al-Fassel.

It should be noted, he said, "that this opposition has existed since the 1980s because of the al-Assad family's hegemony over the sect and its imprisonment of thousands of its members."

The al-Assad regime, the IRGC and Hizbullah are "pursuing those who object and criticize them," he said.

"Shabiha [thugs] of the al-Assad family have offered a reward of 10 million SYP [$770] to those who help them identify the writers of slogans in order to punish them," he said.

Meanwhile, al-Assad himself "brought in 2,000 elements of the 4th Division to quash the ongoing protest movement on the coast amid a media blackout."

Youssef said the Alawite opposition's quarrel with the IRGC and Hizbullah "is political and existential, because they are the enemies of the peoples of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen."

The Iran-aligned groups are attempting to implement the doctrine of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist), which extends Iranian hegemony by demanding allegiance to Iranian leader Ali Khamenei.

Syrian researcher and regime opponent Turki Mustafa told Al-Fassel he welcomed the voices of opposition from the Alawite sect.

He noted that "faint voices have begun to emerge [among the Alawite community] as a result of the hunger and economic crisis."

Mustafa said he hopes the Alawite sect will transcend "the issue of sectarianism in light of the current developments throughout Syria that herald a new reality."