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Syria's Jihadist Order Is a Global Threat

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs) Dalia Ziada - Saudi Arabia and the U.S. are actively propping up Syria's jihadist-led government even as its armed forces carry out ethnic cleansing against minorities from the Druze and the Alawite communities. Yet the West and its allies risk legitimizing a regime ideologically aligned with the very jihadists they once vowed to destroy. From July 13 to 20, Syria's newly revamped public security forces brutally attacked the Druze population of Suwayda, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,340 people. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 196 civilians were summarily executed by government forces, including women, children, the elderly, and even medical workers. An American citizen, Hosam Saraya, 35, from Oklahoma, was executed alongside seven family members by government forces. A widely circulated video shows the forces grabbing Hosam from inside his family's house and then shooting him dead on camera. His crime? Being a Druze. If it were not for Israeli intervention with airstrikes that forced the government forces to withdraw from Suwayda, the number of casualties could have been far greater. Despite his refurbished statesmanlike appearance and softened tone, Ahmed Al-Sharaa is a long-time militant with roots in al-Qaeda's ideological ecosystem and a disciple of global jihadism. Under his leadership, Syria's public security forces are an amalgamation of Salafi-jihadist militias. Many of them are foreign fighters, now masquerading as state officials. Their recent campaigns of violence against the Druze and Alawites are systematic purges meant to cleanse Syria of communities that do not conform to their radical Sunni orthodoxy. The writer, an Egyptian scholar, is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Center.
2025-07-29 00:00:00
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