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Syria: The Sectarian Genie Is Out of the Bottle

(Huffington Post) Josef Olmert - Syrian President Assad's Alawi community, numbering about 15% of the population, is dominant due to its over-representation in the armed forces and the Ba'ath Party. This was the result of developments starting with the French Mandatory regime in Syria, which favored the non-Sunni minorities and encouraged their enlistment in the armed forces. A British consular report from the 1870s about Syria stated, "they hate each other....Sunnis boycott the Shi'ites...both resent the Druze...all despise the Alawis." The greatest Syrian Sunni scholar, Ibn Tayimiyya, issued a ruling in the early 14th century forbidding his followers from marrying Alawis as they were worse infidels than the Jews and Christians. Opposition sources in Syria keep referring to the support that Assad receives from Iran and Hizbullah, trying to prove the non-Sunni character of the regime. The writer is adjunct professor at American University's School of International Service.
2011-03-30 00:00:00
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