After five decades of Assad family rule, and almost 14 years of civil war, Syrians knew that establishing a brighter future was likely to be as fraught a struggle as removing their dictator had been. Many greeted the new president – Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaida fighter and leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – with excitement, while minorities viewed him with a cautious optimism. Now sectarian violence threatens frail but genuine hopes of a better tomorrow.
In March, hundreds of mostly Alawite civilians were massacred along the coast, after an ambush of security forces by supporters of the ousted dictator, Bashar al-Assad, a member of the sect. Then, this month, a dispute between a Bedouin tribesman and a member of the Druze minority in the southern region of Sweida swiftly escalated into horrific sectarian mass violence, involving Syrian government forces.
