Amid the general regional turmoil, Syria has been largely quiet over the past few months. The emergent Sunni Islamist regime of President Ahmed al-Sharaa continues its efforts to broaden and consolidate its rule. Its last major move was in January, when it swiftly mobilized against and destroyed the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria, which had ruled Syria east of the Euphrates since 2019.
The destruction of the Kurdish autonomous area has not, however, led to a general reconciliation between the various ethnic and sectarian communities that make up the Syrian social fabric. Rather, Syria remains deeply divided along these lines, with a series of ongoing “cold wars” underway between minority communities and the new Sunni Arab authorities. These are largely ignored by the international media and by Western policymakers.
They are, nevertheless, significant and, at a certain stage, are likely to assume greater intensity. The three minorities whose current situation is worthy of close observation in the Syrian context are the Druze, the Alawites, and the Kurds.
Ethno-sectarian violence in post-Assad Syria
FOUR INSTANCES of serious ethno-sectarian violence have occurred in Syria since December 8, 2024, when the Assad regime fell. Widespread killings of Alawites took place in the western coastal area by armed Sunni gunmen in February/March 2025, after Alawi attacks on a government checkpoint. Druze were targeted by Syrian transitional government military units and affiliated irregulars in late April 2025. A much larger massacre of Syrian Druze in Sweida province took place in July 2025.
This series of incidents, in which some 1,700 people were killed, began with the kidnapping of a Druze merchant by Bedouin, and ended after widespread violence against Druze civilians with an Israeli air intervention that forced the government fighters back. The last series of clashes took place between government forces and Kurdish/Syrian Democratic Forces fighters in January 2026, after the latter were abandoned by their erstwhile American allies.
The sectarian violence in these cases goes in one direction. The newly ascendant Sunni Arab majority is asserting itself and settling accounts with other elements of the population – both the formerly dominant Alawites and the Druze and Kurds, both in their different ways suppressed by the old, Alawi-dominated Assad regime.
The various responses of the minorities, meanwhile, are largely determined by geopolitical realities. Where potential or actual external partners exist, minority communities and representatives tend to adopt a more defiant stance. Where no such alliances seem available, perhaps temporary quiescence and adaptation to an unwelcome but unavoidable reality is the result.
THE MOST notable minority mobilization taking place against the authorities in Damascus is coming from the Syrian Druze communities, who comprise around 4% of the Syrian population. Geopolitical realities mean that the Druze are currently succeeding in maintaining an enclave into which the Syrian central authorities are not able to enter. This enclave is maintained under a de facto Israeli guarantee.
Separatist sentiment and the desire for a stronger connection or even for annexation to Israel are strong in this area. Demonstrations regularly take place at Karama Square in Sweida city, the heartland of the Druze community in Syria, in which Israeli flags and portraits of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are raised. There isn’t uniformity among the Syrian Druze regarding relations with the central government. Several streams exist.
Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri leads the most separatist element among the Syrian Druze, and the most openly pro-Israeli. His call, for pragmatic reasons, is not for total separation of Sweida from Syria and its annexation by Israel. This is probably his preference, but for practical reasons, his call is for the establishment of a strong, permanent, and institutionalized autonomous status for the province.
A rival stream, led by Sheikh Yusuf Jarbou, opposes cooperation with Israel and supports greater cooperation with the Damascus authorities. Other elements, such as that of Sheikh Hammoud al-Hinnawi, maintain an intermediate position. All these streams have armed factions that stand with them. For the moment, Sweida remains off-limits to government forces.
In the western coastal area, the formerly ascendant Alawi communities, around 12% of the total population, have not managed to organize an effective or united communal response to the challenge posed by the new authorities. Credible evidence exists to suggest that the massacres of the March 2025 period took place as an overreaction to efforts by armed elements associated with the former regime to attack the security forces of Sharaa’s Syrian Transitional Government.
The response was brutal and indiscriminate, as armed Sunni tribal elements entered the coastal area and began to slaughter civilians. Low-level harassment of Alawites by Sunni Arabs has continued, including the abduction of young Alawi women.
Alawi efforts at communal organization take two forms: the first is the association of religious and communal leaders in the framework of the Alawite Supreme Council. The second is networks of armed men organized by officials of the former regime. These include the Syrian Popular Resistance, led by Miqdad Fatiha, and consisting of former members of the Assad regime’s army and security forces, and the Military Council to Free Syria, led by Brigadier-General Ghaith Dala.
Both groups have carried out sporadic attacks on government forces present in the western coastal area. Many former regime officers are now present in Lebanon, and remain committed to this cause. For now, however, it remains a latent threat and a relatively minor problem for the Damascus authorities.
Kurdish military, governance engaging in forced integration
FINALLY, THE Kurdish military and governance structures in the northeast are engaged in a process of forced “integration” into the Syrian state, following their military setbacks in January this year. Kurds constitute around 10% of Syrians. For now, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) still exists and maintains a kind of de facto autonomy in the Kurdish heartlands of Qamishli, Kobani, and Hasakah.
The pace is erratic, but the direction of events seems clear: toward the eventual absorption of these forces into the structures of the government, with some allowance at a level not yet finally clear of Kurdish cultural representation and local rule.
Many issues remain unresolved. A certain amount of de facto local administration is likely to remain, but for now, the dream of maintaining de facto Kurdish rule over large areas has moved beyond reach. Most SDF fighters have been integrated into the state security forces, with only about 8,000 remaining outside of these structures.
Strong Kurdish nationalist sentiment remains and may resurface in the period ahead in forms that are difficult to foresee.
The key point regarding the ongoing ferment among minorities in Syria is that, with the exception of Israeli support for the Druze, it finds no major international echo. The US administration summarily abandoned the Kurds in early 2026. Iran and its allies are not placing a major focus on the remnants of support among Syrian Alawites.
The Sharaa government, meanwhile, finds itself favored by the main apex of influence regarding Middle East affairs in the US administration – namely that of Ambassador Tom Barrack and other senior officials sympathetic to, and influenced by, the Turkish and Qatari positions.
For as long as this state of affairs is maintained, the Syrian government’s combination of alignment with Washington while allying with Sunni Islamist and jihadi forces on the ground, and using these when desired as tools of state policy, looks set to continue, to the ongoing detriment of non-Sunni and non-Arab Syrians.