Syria is descending into sectarian chaos, with escalating violence revealing the government’s inability to maintain order, according to an analysis by Hassan Remo published on 5 May by the Hawar News Agency (ANHA).
Forty-seven people, including Druze civilians and militiamen, were killed in the Damascus suburbs of Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, after the provocation of a fake audio recording ignited clashes. The summary execution of Druze civilians at a poultry farm – “a crime amounting to a war atrocity”, Remo said, was perpetrated by militias linked to Syria’s Ministries of Defence and the Interior. An ambush on the Damascus-Suwayda highway is said to have killed six young Druze men on their way to aid their community, and Druze villages in the province of Suwayda in the south of the country have faced mortar and machine-gun shelling, intensifying communal tensions.
Remo also points to the “conspicuous silence” surrounding the massacre of over 1,500 Alawite civilians in Syria’s coastal region between 6 – 9 March, following which no official investigation has been announced. “This official indifference toward such a large-scale sectarian crime reveals the fragility of the regime’s capacity to manage communal conflict,” he warned. The absence of accountability and media coverage has fuelled perceptions that Alawite victims are being treated as lesser citizens, he noted.
The analyst challenges the Syrian government’s legitimacy, noting that the militias involved operate under official ministries. “Can one speak of a ‘sovereign state’ if it is unable or unwilling to control armed actors embedded within its own official structures, actors who carry out extrajudicial executions and sectarian ambushes without legal oversight?” he asked. He portrays Damascus as “a de facto authority dominated by overlapping security networks and military factions”, prioritising their own agendas over national unity.
Syria’s social fabric, strained by 14 years of war in cities like Homs, Aleppo, Daraa and Idlib, is now fraying in Damascus and the country’s coastal regions. Remo identifies unchecked sectarian incitement, with hate speech targeting Kurds, Alawites and Druze being spread freely on social media, often by groups claiming Ministry of Defence ties. “Calls to slaughter Kurds, Alawites and Druze are being broadcast without consequence,” he stated, criticising the state’s inaction.
The Druze, a religious minority concentrated in Suwayda, and Alawites, prominent in the coastal areas, are facing rising violence. Remo argues that Syria’s centralised governance model has failed to accommodate its diverse ethnic and religious communities, exacerbating divides. He proposes a new social contract to represent all Syrians, rejecting March’s constitutional declaration as a “reproduction of the traditional authoritarian order”. A decentralised democratic system, he says, is essential. “The experience of recent years has shown that the centralised nation-state has failed to manage Syria’s rich diversity,” he explained.
Remo advocates immediate measures against hate speech, enforced by an independent judiciary, and transitional justice to prosecute past violations fairly. He also calls for an end to foreign interference, particularly by Turkey, which he says is fuelling proxy wars. A national dialogue for a new constitution, he urges, is crucial for the building of a pluralistic Syria based on citizenship and accountability.
