MENA Minorities

French Syria expert Fabrice Balanche published a very informative paper about demographics in the province of Latakia including a couple of great maps via the Washington Institute: Latakia Is Assad's Achilles Heel by  Fabrice Balanche

Leon T. Goldsmith from the Sultan Qaboos Unuversity in Oman is the author of a recently published monograph on the Alawites of Syria (I've ordered already). A worth reading piece by him about the current crisis of the Alawites in the light of history can be found on the publishing house's homepage. Is Alawite Solidarity Finally Breaking? by Leon T. Goldsmith On 8 August 2015 large crowds of Alawites demonstrated in Latakia in western Syria , with many demanding the execution of Suleiman Hilal al-Asad, a relative of Bashar al-Asad who murdered—mafia style—the Alawi Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh during an apparent road rage incident . While the regime ordered the arrest of Suleiman, who at the time of writing remains defiant and at large, this incident reflects rising Alawite discontentment with the narrow Asad clique which has been at the centre of Syrian and Alawi power since 1970. Alawites have paid a heavy price in lives in the struggle to preserve Asad rule, a...

Fabrice Blanche from the University of Lyon and one of the leading French experts on Syria published a great overview about The Alawite Community and the Syria Crisis explaining also the basics of the Alawite religion.  The author has done extensive in-deph research on Syrian Alawites see e.g. his book La région alaouite et le pouvoir syrien.

In Syria's war, Alawites pay heavy price for loyalty to Bashar al-Assad by Ruth Sherlock, The Telegraph (...) Many Alawite villages nestled in the hills of their ancestral Latakia province are all but devoid of young men. The women dress only in mourning black. "Every day there at least 30 men returned from the front lines in coffins," said Ammar, who spoke to the Telegraph using a pseudonym to protect himself and his family. "In the beginning of the war their deaths were celebrated with big funerals. Now they are quietly dumped in the back of pick-up trucks." The Syrian government has not published official figures on its war dead . Syrian state television mostly fails to broadcast news of Alawite soldiers killed, instead playing up the deaths of their Sunni comrades, in a bid to shore up Sunni support. A report by the opposition Syrian Network for Human Rights published at the end of last year found that pro-government fighting gro...

The Assad Regime Under Stress: Conscription and Protest among Alawite and Minority Populations in Syria by Christopher Kozak, Institute for the Study of War

The first is a mere brief article in Foreign Affairs , which aims to present the Alawite community as a non-monolithic. The author argues, that even though discontent is growing "Assad still has the support he needs from Alawite families". I want to add that reports about sporadic tensions are circulating are not so new, they have been circulating at least for over two years. Not Alright With Syria's Alawites by Oula Abdulhamid Alrifai, Foreign Affairs The second is a recent academic article, which pretty much summarizes the existing scholarly work and discusses the  change of Alawite identity from the Ottomans over the French to the current state. There is not much in depth  research on the Alawites, which makes this piece even more valuable (found on Twitter via  @aron_ld ). Sectarianism in Alawi Syria: Exploring theParadoxes of Politics and Religion by Aslam Farouk-Alli, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 34, 3 2014.

Suwayda residents speak out against military service   by Syria Direct  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH : Pro-regime activists took to the streets of the Druze-majority city of Suwayda to distribute pamphlets condemning the mounting death toll among Suwayda's young men performing mandatory service in the regime army, reported pro-opposition Orient News Wednesday. Here, a pamphlet reads “Enough is enough...the sons of Suwayda are being murdered in A-Raqqa and elsewhere...for whose sake...until when...the chair [of power] is for you [Bashar al-Assad]...and the tomb is for our sons,” while women in the picture to the left mourn over their deceased relatives. The discontent with mandatory military service articulated in these pamphlets has surfaced in other pro-regime areas. Alawite activists—co-religionists of president Bashar al-Assad— distributed pamphlets in the Alawite-majority city of Tartus in August, reading “the chair for you [Assad], the coffins for our childre...

At Syria Comment Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi provides a solid overview about current militia-related minority dynamics in Syria briefly touching Alawites (including muqawama as-Suriya ), Druze and Christians (in a SSNP- and an Assyrian context). Minority Dynamics in Syria by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, Syria Comment

As it was notedd in a report by Human Rights Watch , Alawite women and children had been kidnapped during the rebel-offensive in Latakia province last August. Last week some of the abductees appeared in a video aired by Al Jazeera , in which unnamed Islamist forces declared their readiness for a prisoner exchange: Al Jazeera : Syrian rebels claim Alawites' kidnapping Joshua Hersh wrote an impressing article for the Huffington Post reviewing the massacre of the Alawite population in Latakia province: 'He Knew That Death Was Coming': Survivors Mourn After A Massacre By Syrian Rebels   by Joshua Hersch, Huffington Post

The "Syria in Crisis" Blog (which is generally great btw) on the Site of the Carnegie Endowment featured an interesting piece on the Alawites of Lebanon which provides some usefull background information about this community and an analysis of it's current leadership dynamics. "Power Struggles Among the Alawites in Lebanon" Part I Part II by Raphaël Lefèvre

The violent situation between Sunnis and Alawites in Tripoli is even more tense now, due to the alleged involvement of senior Alawite leader  ʿ Ali  ʿ Aid (Eid)  in the August mosqe bombings. According to the Daily Star , the conflict is now threatening the Alawite villages in northern Lebanon's  ʿ Akkar district close to the Syrian border (where  ʿ Ali  ʿ Aid  resides). After Eid was summoned, media reports emerged that Syrian tanks gathered on the other side of the border, which is very close to Eid’s residence in Hikr al-Daheri, where he currently resides. Some Alawites fear that their community would pay a price, however, if the Syrian army targets Akkar. “Syrian tanks [on the other side of the border] are aiming at Akkar. Unfortunately, Alawite villages in Akkar will pay the price once the first shell is fired,” a source familiar with the community in Akkar told The Daily Star.  Eid did not show up at court for questioning Tues...