Protests have erupted across Syria’s coastal regions, marking a new wave of sectarian upheaval since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime a year ago.
During the protests on Sunday, gunfire was directed at Syrian security forces at the al-Azhari roundabout in Latakia while unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the al-Anaza police station in the district of Banias in the Tartous governorate.
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The Alawite minority, which al-Assad is a member of, held the protests after at least eight people were killed in the bombing of an Alawite mosque in Homs on Friday. They are demanding security guarantees and political reforms.
Several cities along Syria’s Mediterranean coast have experienced deadly sectarian violence over the past year, raising questions about whether the interim government can maintain unity in a nation still scarred by 14 years of civil war.
So what are the protests about, and what do they mean for political and social stability in Syria?
What sparked the protests?
The bombing of the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in the Wadi al-Dahab neighbourhood of Homs during Friday prayers led to the demonstrations.
The bombing was claimed by a little-known group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, which said on its Telegram channel that the attack was intended to target members of the Alawite sect.
Syria’s security and political establishment was dominated by Alawites until al-Assad’s regime fell in December 2024.
Saraya Ansar al-Sunna also had claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing of a Damascus church in June that killed at least 20 people.
Syria’s government condemned the mosque attack on Friday, describing it as the latest in a series of “desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and sow chaos among the Syrian people”.
Who’s leading the protests?
The protests were primarily organised after calls for action by Ghazal Ghazal, an Alawite religious figure who lives outside Syria with little known about his whereabouts.
He heads a group called the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and Abroad.
“We want political federalism. … We want to determine our own destiny,” Ghazal said in a video message on Facebook, referring to a system of government under which power is shared between the national government and its states.
Protesters also called for greater protections for the Alawite community, accountability for attacks against civilians and political guarantees.
In coastal areas, including the cities and wider governorates of Latakia and Tartous, clashes broke out between Alawite protesters and counterprotesters supporting the new government.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Latakia reported seeing counterprotesters throwing rocks at Alawite demonstrators while a group of protesters beat a counterprotester who entered their area.
Syria’s Ministry of Defence said on Sunday that army units had moved into the centres of these cities after assaults by “outlaw groups” targeting civilians and security personnel with the aim of re-establishing stability.
Have there been any casualties?
SANA, the official Syrian news agency, reported that four people have been killed and more than 100 injured in the unrest in Latakia.
Quoting officials from Syria’s Directorate of Health, SANA said injuries included “stabbings, blows from stones, and gunfire targeting both security personnel and civilians”.
Later on Sunday, the Interior Ministry reported that one of its security officers had been killed in the clashes.
Two security personnel were wounded in Tartous when unknown assailants threw a hand grenade at the al-Anaza police station.
Who are the Alawites?
The Alawites are a religious minority in Syria and are the second largest religious group after Sunni Muslims.
Alawites make up 10 percent of Syria’s 23 million people, but this community was politically dominant under al-Assad, who ruled Syria beginning in 2000 and recruited heavily from the Alawite community for his army and security apparatus.
Since al-Assad’s overthrow, Syria has seen several instances of sectarian violence. In March, violence broke out in coastal cities, including Latakia, Banias, Tartous and Jableh, and government-allied groups were accused of carrying out summary executions, mostly of Alawite civilians.
A government committee tasked with investigating the attacks concluded that about 1,400 people were killed during several days of violence.
In July, violence between Druze and Sunni Bedouin communities flared up in the southern governorate of Suwayda, although experts say this conflict is rooted in more complex issues than just sectarianism, including in historical disputes over land. That unrest escalated into Israel bombing Syria’s Ministry of Defence and other targets in the capital Damascus – ostensibly to protect the Druze, although local activists and analysts said Israel’s aim was to fuel internal instability.
Alawites have also voiced grievances about discrimination in public sector hiring since al-Assad’s fall as well as the detention of young Alawite men without charge.
Will the Syrian government be able to maintain peace?
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has emphasised the need to “preserve national unity and domestic peace”.
At the Doha Forum this month, al-Sharaa said people in Syria “simply did not know each other well” due to issues inherited from the al-Assad regime.
Syria’s enduring sectarian divides and the central government’s limited authority are fuelling demands from minorities for decentralisation, according to Rob Geist Pinfold, a scholar of international security at King’s College London.
The Alawites are not the only minority who have aired concerns about sectarianism since the fall of al-Assad, Geist Pinfold told Al Jazeera.
The interim government so far has failed to integrate regions controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the new government, he added, despite a March 10 agreement between them that planned for integration.
This is largely down to mistrust, experts said.
Minority groups, including Alawites and the Druze, “simply don’t think that the government has their best interests at heart and actually see the government as a security threat”, Geist Pinfold explained.
“Syria is caught up in this vicious cycle where the government doesn’t have trust with minority groups. It can’t exert enough power to bring those minority groups into the fold,” he said, adding that it also doesn’t want to do so in an “oppressive or repressive way that would only alienate them further”.
What will happen next?
Over the next few days, Geist Pinfold said, there could be two potential outcomes.
“The positive outcome would be that the Syrian government reaches some kind of understanding or a tentative understanding with the SDF in eastern Syria that points towards a kind of roadmap for a future integration,” he noted, adding that such a step could ease tensions not only in eastern Syria but in other regions as well.
However, he warned that continued violence could spark deeper ethnic and sectarian divides.
“Syria stands on the edge of a very, very dangerous precipice,” he cautioned, comparing the risk to Iraq’s descent into mass sectarian violence after the 2003 United States-led invasion.
