After the bloodshed, can Syria’s president unite his country?

The bloodbath that terrified Syrians expected after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December came at last. Responding to calls for jihad from mosques across the country on March 6th, thousands of Sunni fighters descended on the coast and slaughtered hundreds of Alawites, a small sect many Sunnis deem heretical and blame for propping up the Assads, Syria’s Alawite dictators, for half a century. In villages near the coastal city of Latakia, they filmed themselves climbing on the backs of men, making them bark like dogs before shooting them dead. Eyewitnesses describe streets strewn with bodies and rows of burnt-out homes. Hundreds of thousands fled to the woods, hills and to neighbouring Lebanon. More than 800 are thought to have been killed, including hundreds of civilians. “It’s a disaster zone,” says an observer who travelled from Damascus to Latakia.

Syria’s interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, seemed to waver between his jihadist past and his presidential present. After the first day of violence he made a video address rich in religious incantations, fanning the flames and praising “our” honourable fighters. But as the country threatened to spiral out of his control, Mr Sharaa deftly changed course. In a second filmed address two days later, he posed as leader of a nation, not a sect. For the first time since assuming power, he appointed Alawites to senior positions, including them on two committees: one to investigate the violence, the other to restore “civil peace”.

The next day he unveiled an unexpected agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (sdf), a Kurdish-led militia in the northeast, to integrate it into state institutions. Another deal with the Druze, a sect wooed by Israel, is apparently imminent. And on March 11th he summoned Sunni preachers for a Ramadan meal and instructed them to preach equality between Syrians of all sects, said his local childhood preacher, Sheikh Kheil Abu Shukri, who was present. Could he bring together a country which five days earlier seemed to have been tearing itself apart?

The violence has reopened sectarian wounds that the downfall of Mr Assad had promised to heal. Across Syria plenty of Sunnis have responded to news of the massacres by jubilantly handing out dates. Many, including secular Sunnis, have celebrated the restoration of the Sunni majority’s historical supremacy. And most see the bloodletting as retribution for Alawite crimes committed under the Assads. They say the fulul, or remnants of the Assad regime, planned to unleash a nascent insurgency on the coast.

By contrast Syria’s minorities, particularly the Alawites, are cowering in fear. Clerics in Idlib, Mr Sharaa’s old rebel enclave, offered encouragement to the militants. The director of a Damascus radio station appointed by Mr Sharaa encouraged listeners to cast Syria’s Alawites into the sea: “Far be it to say that we left the fish in the Mediterranean hungry.” Thousands of armed militiamen, including foreign jihadists, heeded the call and descended on the coast, killing and pillaging. Mr Sharaa’s commanders declared the Alawite heartland a military zone and for two days ignored appeals to close the roads.

On the coast many Alawites are begging for protection from outsiders. Thousands have sought refuge inside Hmeimim, Russia’s coastal base. In Damascus and other cities, minorities fear the jihadists might yet turn their sights on them. Mr Sharaa’s soft-spoken demeanour reminds them of Bashar al-Assad. Many still fear their new president is just a terrorist in a suit. To facilitate the reallocation of jobs and housing to the Sunnis, Mr Sharaa has dissolved the old armed forces, purged the civil service and turfed former officials out of their government homes. As with de-Baathification in Iraq, this is deterring minorities from handing over their weapons and stoking support for rebellion.

Satisfying both Sunnis and minorities will be hard. If Mr Sharaa is to control the Sunni extremists, he will need to start the transitional justice he has so far balked at. But he will also need to ensure that Alawites who did not inflict the horrors of the former regime can return to their jobs. To tempt both into his new order, he will need money to pay them. Sanctions imposed on Syria under Mr Assad have led to a chronic cash shortage. Since Mr Sharaa took control, almost no state workers have been paid. Without cash for salaries, Syria’s many Islamist militias will continue to defy Mr Sharaa’s efforts to stand up a new army to enforce his writ, and will treat minorities as spoils of war. The collapsing economy will continue to sap support for the new government.

A one-man band

Mr Sharaa’s reluctance to share power has punctured national confidence. The deadlines he set for forming a more inclusive government, issuing a constitutional declaration and appointing a legislature have come and gone. For three months he has run Syria as he ran Idlib, relying on a tiny clique drawn from his militia.

A sin, says the Koran, can be removed only by a good deed. On March 10th it occurred. Mr Sharaa’s deal with the Kurds restores central authority over north-eastern Syria for the first time in a decade. If realised, the Kurds’ integration could bolster Mr Sharaa’s military clout, broaden his power base and, thanks to the oilfields the Kurds control, inject revenue into his system. His formal recognition of the Kurds as a distinct group and de facto decentralisation also sets a model Druze and Alawite leaders might follow. Importantly, the Kurdish deal also has America’s blessing.

Much could still go wrong. Mr Sharaa is a master of fudged deals and deception. The Kurdish agreement was cobbled together so quickly that the document contains a grammatical error. It skirts over the details and postpones the merger until the end of the year. “The sdf will remain a unified entity with no fundamental changes in this regard,” insists a Kurdish official. Mr Sharaa could yet give his extremists free rein. And the minorities still have foreign backers keen to meddle. But after the horrors on the coast, the deal has revived Syrian dreams of a brighter future. ■

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