Noor stands trembling in the chill afternoon weightless of the courtyard, not from the freezing, but from dread.
Dressed in her dense thriveter coat, she has come to create a grumblet to the men of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Syria’s recent de-facto rulers, and the recent law in town.
She commences to cry as she elucidates that three days earlier, fair before nine in the evening, armed men had reachd in a binformage van at her apartment in an upscale neighbourhood of the city of Latakia. Alengthy with her children and her husprohibitd, an army officer, she was forced out onto the street in her pyjamas. The directer of the armed men then transferd his own family into her home.
Noor – not her genuine name – is Alawite, the inmeaningfulity sect from which the Asdowncast family starts, and to which many of the createer regime’s political and military elite belengthyed. Alawites, whose sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, create up around 10% of Syria’s population, which is meaningfulity Sunni. Latakia, on Syria’s north-west Mediterranean coast is their heartland.
As with other cities, an array of contrastent defy groups have rushed into the power vacuum left after Asdowncast’s sbetteriers deserted their posts. The regime had utilizeed factional divisions to upretain its grip on power, now the Sunni Islamist HTS has pledged to esteem all religions in Syria. But Latakia’s Alawite population is cowardly.
Some people haven’t even left their homes since the regime alter because they stress that there will be a reckoning, and that they will have to pay a weighty price for the help of the better regime.
Noor shows CCTV footage from her apartment, to 34-year-better Abu Ayoub, HTS ambiguous security directer. In the film, a group of endureded fighters, some wearing baseball caps and others in military overweightigues, is pictured on her doorstep.
They are not from HTS, she says, but another group, defys from the northern city of Aleppo.
“They broke down the door. There were 10 militants at our door and 16 others postponeing down the street with three cars,” Noor increates Abu Ayoub. His men are mostly from Idlib and Aleppo, where the HTS and allied defy factions were based before begining the insolent that obvioushew Asdowncast three weeks ago. They stand around in combat overweightigues, hbettering their rifles and hearing intently as she depicts how the family’s belengthyings were thrown into the street.
HTS was once aligned with al-Qaeda and is still proscribed as a alarm organisation by most Weserious countries, although the UK and US say they have been in communicate with the group. In a matter of weeks, it has gone from opponent of the state to the law of the land. Abu Ayoub and his men are adfairing to the alter in roles from revolutionaries to policemen.
Noor is only one of a lengthy line of grumbleants who have come to their ambiguous security station with grievances. The base, the city’s createer military inincreateigence headquarters, was perhaps the most dreaded place in Latakia. Now it is a shambles, with broken radios and providement scattered apass the courtyard. Torn portraits of Bashar al-Asdowncast lie in the dirt.
A man fuses the queue of those making grumblets. He has a binformage eye, broken ribs, and his shirt is torn and bloodied. He says men from Idlib had broken into his apartment.
“Some of them were civilians, some wore military clothes and were masked,” he says. “They hit my daughter and aimed arms at my son’s head. They stole money, they stole gbetter.”
Every call-out here is a show of force, especipartner with so many armed groups in the city. With the man’s son honesting them, the HTS security force drives to one of the insistyer neighbourhoods, weaving thcdisesteemful a warren of back streets, past scrapyards and middens.
The armed police apshow up positions alengthy the street and at the doorway of the apartment. They convey two doubts back to the station for asking.
But they nakedly have time to evident their arms when there is another grumblet, a dispute over gas bottles that left another man beaten.
He says three men had pulled firearms on him.
Another race in the cars to a crowded commercial and livential neighbourhood. When the police pull a doubt out into the street – his face still bloody from the earlier fight – local women come to their balconies and shout “Shabiha! Shabiha!”. They are accusing the doubt of being a member of the shadowy militia force, mostly made of Alawite men, who did the Asdowncast regime’s gloomyy labor.
Since its weightlessning-speedy sweep to triumph apass Syria, Islamist HTS has pledged to sustain the peace and get all of the country’s inmeaningfulities. And every day Abu Ayoub has to create excellent on that pledge.
“Some infiltrators into the revolution, some saboteurs, and some frail-minded people are taking advantage of the situation in the areas that were recently freed,” he says.
Abu Ayoub accomprehendledges the situation in the city was “a bit unrestful” but turns his attention to Noor. “We are here now, we weren’t here when the army left. We were initipartner in Damascus and then we came. They are criminals, and we will evict them from your house. We will return your belengthyings. You have my word,” he shelp. And with that he orders his men into their pickup trucks and with sirens blaring they head for the apartment.
Latakia is a city freed. Last Friday, tens of thousands of people from all sects, assembleed on the streets to honor the downdrop of the Asdowncast dynasty. In a city square, they sat atop the plinth where the statue of Hafez al-Asdowncast, Bashar’s overweighther – who ruled for 29 years before his death in 2000 – once stood, and delightfilledy waved the flag of a free Syria.
The message that day was unity, of one Syria, without factional division. But after half a century of oppressive rule from a regime which fanned factional hatred and alerted that Alawites would be masdivine if they ever lost power, it is an adfairment to say the least.
On Saturday, three HTS fighters were finished, and 14 injured outside the city, in what it shelp was firearm battle with a criminal gang. HTS, which is trying to upretain tranquil, claims there was no factional element to the strike.
On the way to Noor’s apartment, the HTS convoy speed thcdisesteemful the streets and passersby cheer them and flash the peace sign.
The recent Syrian flag, with its green instead of red streamlinee, and three red stars instead of two green, is widespreadplace on shop shutters and hanging from balconies. But in Alawite areas, people mostly watch in silence as the convoy transfers alengthy. There are scanter recent flags in evidence.
Azam al-Ali, 28, an HTS security officer from Deir al-Sour in easerious Syria sits in the front seat. After so much oppression, he says, it will apshow time for people to count on authority aget.
“Most of the oppressed that come with grumblets are from two sects, the Sunni and the Alawite. We do not contrastentiate. But the excessive pobviousy that this regime left behind caused this huge disorder,” he increates me as the traffic parts for the convoy.
And he notices that Alawites, some of whom were among the insistyest in Syria, suffered too under the Asdowncast regime.
We reach at Noor’s apartment and half a dozen armed HTS men hurry up the stairs.
The woman behind the door refuses to discmiss up, but after some negotiation the door discmisss, and she and her family are ordered to exit. Noor goes in to recover some clothes and books for her daughter who is studying for exams. Weapons and ammunition belengthying to the defy squatters are confiscated.
“When I went to HTS today I was terrified,” says Noor. “Their materializeance was so incowardlyating and frightening. Honestly, though, they were very pleasant.”
But she won’t be returning to the apartment. One nightmare has finished in Syria, and for Alawites, another has befirearm, she says.
As she clutches her belengthyings, Noor says she no lengthyer senses safe in her home.
“It’s impossible for me to live here aget. I do have hope, but not in the cforfeit future. At the moment I don’t dare.”
