William Christou
Guardian, Mar. 10, 2025
“They took a 16-year-old boy, he had a nervous breakdown, telling them not to kill him. They didn’t say anything, they just took him and killed him.”
Clashes between Syrian security services and fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime erupted on Wednesday, kicking off five days of still-ongoing fighting which has killed more than 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, according to a war monitor.
The clashes, some of the deadliest in the country since the beginning of its civil war in 2011, were the biggest challenge Syria’s new authorities faced since taking power in December.
Civilians, mainly from the minority Islamic Alawite sect, faced a wave of revenge killings from Syrian government forces and Assad loyalists.
How did the violence start and who was behind the killing of civilians?
How did the clashes start?
On 8 December 2024, rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled over Syria for 53 years. HTS then assumed power, forming a transitional government led by the group’s former leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously went by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. …SOURCE