Moqtad has not been able to sleep at night for days. Before, yes, he says, before the government of the former Syrian president fell Bashar al-Assad This man fell asleep perfectly. “We trust Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, for its acronym in English, the rebel group that now controls the country), and we welcome them, but they are coming to the people hooded people who claims to be from HTS who is doing terrifying things to us. Us they stealnos they attack. We ask you to please govern, to secure the area. Let them throw out the saboteurs and attackers,” continues Moqtad, a young man from the village of Qardahain the Syrian coastal region of Latakia.
Qardahah is a strange place. In the town, located on a hillside that overlooks the Mediterranean a few kilometers away, children and chickens swarm among garbage and debris from the surrounding houses. There has never been fighting here during the 13-year Syrian civil war: the destruction is due to extreme poverty of the town.
No one would know it: Qardahah is the village of origin of the Asad family. Asad Sr. was born in Qardahah, Hafezwho ruled Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000. From there – although he was born in Damascus – came the son, Bashar, anointed in 2000 as heir – initially unwanted – and deposed just a week ago after the military victory of HTS and the other rebel militias in the Syrian war.
A girl writes “Idlib,” in the name of the northern Syrian city, on the walls of the tomb of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, in Qardahah. / UMIT BEKTAS / REUTERS
“During the last few days, several groups of armed men and hooded men have been coming to town, entering houses and stores and robbing us. Just yesterday, they broke into a house. We tried to resist, we called HTS and when HTS came there was a shooting between those men, us, and the members of HTS,” explains Brahim Isa, a member of the Qardahah municipal council, who complains that the residents, alone, are unable to guarantee the security of the area.
The entire region is populated by Syrian Alawite minority —to which the Asads also belonged—. Alawism, a branch of shia islamhas much more permissive practices and rituals than Islam sunni majority in Syria. In this region—whose capital is Latakia—, it is much more common, for example, to see women practicing their professions and walking without a veil on the street.
“When they arrived, the HTS people were very elegant. They treated us very well, and they told us that they will help us. But it is not enough. […] We feel very insecureand we have fear. Fear of what may come next. We don’t want to go from a blood bathto another bloodbath. “We don’t know if those who attack us are rebels who do it because we are Alawites, or if they are thieves and groups who have made it their job to kill and steal during the war, and continue to do so even though the conflict has ended,” Brahim continues.
A hasty ending
It is early in the morning, and a young woman is waiting for the minibus on the outskirts of Latakia, the region’s large city. To his right, other passengers are queuing to get on. On the left, someone else is waiting: a huge tank abandoned with everything he was wearing and full, to the top, of missile heads and ammunition.
He is not the only one in the place: around Latakia everything is armored vehicles and trucks of the former Syrian Army, abandoned. But there is, above all, uniforms everywhere: lying in the middle of the road and on the road, poorly hung (due to the rush, as time was pressing) on the fenders and the local undergrowth. They are from regular soldiers Syrians who, before the fall of the regime, abandoned their posts and their equipment to hide among the civilian population. In the city, there are even rumors circulating that in the mountains of the area, armed ex-soldiers and ex-commanders of Assad have organized themselves and are hiding from the new masters of Syria.
“The security situation inside the city is good. We have not had any problems. But we wish that the things that happened during the previous regime would not be repeated now,” asks Munifa, an Alawite from Latakia, who continues: “We are afraid that they make laws to force us to carry the hijabwhich we impose a lifestyle concrete. I am a mechanical engineer, and I don’t want my life to be interrupted. And, on top of that, we are afraid that they will try to take revenge, of course,” says the woman, with her son by her side.
“My oldest son is in the Army. Did he go there because he wanted to? Or because he was forced to? My other son,” says Munifa, pointing to his side, “has a health problem, which exempts him from having to go to the Army.” Army. A few months ago I went to the headquarters to pick up the permit, and to get it they forced me to give them some gold. We have all suffered. All. As Alawite citizens, our only demand of the rebels is that do not make us pay for the injustices committed by Assad and his groups“.
“What has happened has already happened,” shouts through the loudspeakers the leader of a group of HTS militiamen, standing on a platform that previously served as the base for a statue of Hafez al Assad, Bashar’s father. “We are one. May God welcome all the dead, no matter which side they fight on,” he continues. A small group of young people celebrate before the guerrillas, now the masters of Syria. Most passersby go about their business.
A Russian military convoy heads to the Hmeimim base on the coast of Latakia this Saturday. / UMIT BEKTAS / REUTERS
A few kilometers south of Latakia, a Russian fighter descends to the landing strip. In that area is the base rusa de Hmeimimwhere Assad fled last weekend in the direction of Russia. Moscow has been emptying the site for several days, according to satellite images taken of the base over the past few days. Russia also maintains, of course, its Tartus naval base, also on the Syrian Mediterranean coast.
“Nyet,” answers the Russian soldier at the entrance to the Hmeimim base to everything he is asked. Before, he has asked his question: and who are you? He hasn’t opened his mouth anymore.
“Goodbye, president”
It is noon, and the sun sneaks through what used to be the windows of the place, a construction of pristine marble and stone within the depressed town of Qardahah. The interior is dark, and several militiamen approach the center of the enclosure: there, in the middle of the monument, a gray stone marks Hafez’s tomb. Beside him, in the corners, two other tombstones on the ground accompany the first of the Asads: Anisa, the woman; and Basel, the eldest son, who was supposed to be the heir but died in a car accident—an expensive sports car, of course—in 1994. Bashar is in Moscow.
The militiamen are happy. Hafez’s tomb has been completely desecrated and burnedand any self-respecting militiaman, these days, comes to this point to empty his bladder, insult and step on the mausoleum of the father of the former Syrian president.
“Now you are under our feet. For our martyrs, for our dead, for our orphans… We stepped on your tombstone, Hafez. We promised, and we have kept our word,” reads one graffiti. The militiamen smile and, AK-47 above, they smile while taking photos with their phones.
One of them, the eldest, raises his rifle with the only arm he has left: “I lost my arm in an air raid in 2013. But since then I have continued the path of the revolution with only one arm. I didn’t need anything else. “Now I can come here to taste victory.”
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