Trump Lifts Sanctions on HTS While Alawite Massacres Unfold

Date: 01 July 2025 - 21:39

News ID: ۱۴۱۰۲۱

LONDON (Dispatches) -- Fighting units associated with Syria’s ruling authority, including its Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), played a key role in the mass killing of Alawite civilians on the Syrian coast last March, an investigation by Reuters has found.
The British news outlet stated that between 7 and 10 March, “1,479 Syrian Alawites were killed and dozens were missing from 40 distinct sites of revenge killings, rampages and looting.”
The investigation found that armed units associated with HTS, the former Al-Qaeda affiliate led by Syria’s now de facto president Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, participated in the killings in at least 10 sites, where nearly 900 people were killed.
These include the General Security Service (GSS), which is the enforcement arm of the HTS’s ministry of interior, as well as Unit 400 and the Othman Brigade.
The HTS regime has claimed that the GSS was deployed to protect, rather than massacre, Alawite civilians during the three-day killing spree.
Unit 400 is reportedly “among the strongest units” in HTS, having received “high levels of training and equipped with the most modern weaponry,” Reuters wrote.
Unit 400 was moved to the coastal regions after HTS deposed the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and took power in Damascus in December. A foreign intelligence source speaking with Reuters said Unit 400 set up its headquarters in the former Syrian naval academy and takes orders from senior officials in the Defense Ministry.
The Cradle reported that members of Jolani’s General Security also carried out the July 22 suicide bombing at the Mar Elias Church in Damascus, leaving 25 worshippers dead and injuring over 50.
The British news agency’s investigation found that armed groups belonging to the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) also participated widely in the killing of Alawites in March.
SNA factions, including the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade and the
Hamza division, have been incorporated into the HTS’ ministry of defense. Prominent SNA commander Muhammad al-Jassim, or “Abu Amsha,” was appointed commander of the HTS’s 25th Division based in Hama shortly after the massacres unfolded.
“SNA factions have a track record of abductions, sexual violence, and widespread looting, according to Human Rights Watch and other rights groups,” Reuters wrote.
The British news agency found the involvement of the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade and the Hamza division in at least eight different sites where nearly 700 people were killed.
Reuters noted that just as the massacres were unfolding, a gunman affiliated with the Sultan Suleiman Shah division posted on Facebook: “Turn off cameras. Kill every male. Their blood is as dirty as pigs.”
Since Assad fell, Syria has witnessed a chilling wave of mysterious kidnappings of young women, predominantly from the Alawite community.
Evidence continues to emerge that these women have been abducted and taken to live as sex slaves in Idlib governorate, the traditional HTS stronghold, by armed factions affiliated with the new Syrian government.
While under Jolani’s command, the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front (the forerunner to HTS) committed similar massacres and abductions throughout the 14-year war that began in 2011 to topple the Syrian government.
In August 2013, militants from the Nusra Front, Daesh, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) raided 10 Alawite villages in Latakia, slaughtering 190 civilians, including 57 women, 18 children, and 14 elderly men, while taking another 200 hostage, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported.
During an interview with Al Jazeera in 2015, Jolani vowed to kill any Alawites who refused to convert to Sunni Islam.
Amid the findings, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order lifting a majority of Washington’s sanctions regime against Syria, citing “the positive actions taken by the new Syrian government under President Ahmad al-Sharaa (Jolani).”
The order also calls for U.S. officials to “take all appropriate action with respect to the designation of Al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and other aliases, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization” and “Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, commonly known as Ahmad al-Sharaa, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”
The executive order is scheduled to take effect on July 1.
Trump first announced plans to lift sanctions that devastated Syria’s economy for more than a decade and pushed over 90 percent of the population below the poverty line during a trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May.
Trump met Jolani during this trip, praising the founder of Al-Qaeda in Syria and deputy commander to the founder of Daesh as a “young attractive guy” and a “fighter” with a “very strong past.”
Based on western media reports last month, the U.S. government’s conditions to lift sanctions against Syria included normalizing relations with Israel through signing the Abraham Accords and expelling Palestinian resistance factions from the country.
Washington has levied sanctions against Syria since 1979 for its foreign policy opposing Israel.
To block Syria’s post-war reconstruction under Assad, the harshest sanctions were imposed in 2019 by Congress through the passage of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.