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Kidnappings, killings, lawlessness grip Syria under HTS rule

Tuesday, 11 March 2025 10:56 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 11 March 2025 10:56 AM ]

Forces loyal to the ruling Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) regime man a checkpoint in Syria's western city of Latakia on March 10, 2025. (Photo by AFP)

A wave of kidnappings in Syria under the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rule has reportedly caused residents to fear leaving their homes after dark.

According to the New York Times, people are demanding more policemen in the streets, but their number is not enough as the ruling regime has dismissed all officers and security officials of the former government of Bashar al-Assad.

"Sectarian tensions, opportunistic crime and desire for revenge have converged amid a security vacuum that has left many Syrians afraid to go out at night," the report said.

The groups monitoring events in Syria have reported at least a dozen abductions in the Arab country over the past three months, it added.

"The security situation is compounded by other problems, like a severe electricity shortage that leaves some neighborhoods dark at night. In several cities, residents say they have installed metal doors to protect against thieves, and some parents have stopped sending their children to school."

The HTS leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has pinned the blame for kidnappings on the Assad government.

“Today there is security, though there are small incidents here and there,” he claimed during a recent interview with Syria TV, adding that decades of “bad policies can’t be undone in a matter of days or weeks.”

Many of those abducted come from Syria’s Druze, Christians, and Alawite religious minorities.

The report documented the case of Sami al-Izoo, who witnessed the kidnapping of his 60-year-old brother, Abdulrazaq.

The kidnappers asked Sami to pay a ransom of $400,000, an impossible sum for him to raise.

Sami, from the town of Talbiseh, said that he had repeatedly asked local forces for help, but they had taken no action.

In another case, the Shadood brothers, Amjad, 25, and Mohammad, 26, from the Alawite religious minority, were abducted while walking home at night from their restaurant jobs.

The kidnappers never contacted the family of the abductees, whose bodies were found by the side of a highway in a neighboring province about a week later.

Abductions, extra-judicial killings surge in Syria under HTS rule: Report

A new report has revealed mounting kidnappings and extra-judicial killings under the HTS rule in Syria.

On December 8, 2024, foreign-backed HTS militants announced the fall of Assad’s government following a rapid two-week onslaught.

Last week, the HTS militants and armed opposition groups engaged in deadly confrontations in the country’s northwestern coastal region.

More than 1,540 people, the majority of them civilians, have been killed so far in the violence in the provinces of Tartus, Latakia, Hama and Homs, according to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

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