Exclusive-How Syria's sectarian violence spread to capital, terrorizing Alawites

By Maya Gebeily, Timour Azhari and Feras Dalatey

DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Close to midnight on March 6, as a wave of sectarian killings began in western Syria, masked men stormed the homes of Alawite families in the capital Damascus and detained more than two dozen unarmed men, witnesses said.

Those taken from the neighbourhood of al-Qadam included a retired teacher, an engineering student and a mechanic, all of them Alawite - the minority sect of toppled leader Bashar al-Assad.

A group of Alawites loyal to Assad had launched a fledgling insurgency hours earlier in coastal areas, some 200 miles (320 km) to the northwest. That unleashed a spree of revenge killings there that left hundreds of Alawites dead. 

Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa told Reuters he dispatched his forces the next day to halt the violence on the coast but that some fighters who flooded the region to crush the uprising did so without defence ministry authorisation.

Amid fears of wider sectarian conflict across Syria, Sharaa's government took pains to emphasize in the wake of the violence that the killings were geographically limited. It named a fact-finding committee to investigate "the events on the coast". 

According to accounts from 13 witnesses in Damascus, however, the sectarian violence spread to the southern edges of Syria's capital, a few kilometres from the presidential palace. The details of the alleged raids, kidnappings and killings have not been previously reported. 

"Any Alawite home, they knocked the door down and took the men from inside," said one resident, whose relative, 48-year-old telecoms engineer Ihsan Zeidan, was taken by masked men in the early hours of March 7.

"They took him purely because he's Alawite." 

All the witnesses who spoke to Reuters requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals.

The neighbourhood of al-Qadam is well-known to be home to many Alawite families. In total, the witnesses said, at least 25 men were taken. At least 12 of them were later confirmed dead, according to relatives and neighbours, who said they either saw photographs of the bodies or found them dead nearby.

The rest of the men have not been heard from.

Four of the witnesses said some of the armed men who came to al-Qadam identified themselves as members of General Security Service (GSS), a new Syrian agency comprising former rebels.

A spokesperson for the interior ministry, under which the GSS operates, told Reuters the force "did not target Alawites directly. The security forces are confiscating weapons from all sects."  

The spokesperson did not respond to further questions, including why unarmed men were allegedly taken in these operations.

Yasser Farhan, spokesman for the committee investigating the sectarian violence, said its work has been geographically limited to the coast, so it had not investigated cases in al-Qadam. "But there may be deliberations within the committee at a later time to expand our work," he told Reuters.

Alawites comprise around 10% of Syria's population, concentrated in the coastal heartlands of Latakia and Tartus. Thousands of Alawite families have also lived in Damascus for decades, and in provincial cities such as Homs and Hama. 

CYCLE OF IMPUNITY 

Human Rights Watch researcher Hiba Zayadin called for a thorough investigation of the alleged raids, in response to Reuters' reporting.

"Families deserve answers, and the authorities must ensure that those responsible are held accountable, no matter their affiliation," she said. "Until that happens, the cycle of violence and impunity will continue."

Four of the men confirmed dead in Damascus were from the same extended family, according to a relative who escaped the raid by hiding on an upper floor with the family's young children.

They were Mohsen Mahmoud Badran, 77, Fadi Mohsen Badran, 41, Ayham Hussein Badran, a 40-year-old born with two fingers on his right hand, a birth defect that disqualified him from army service, and their brother-in-law Firas Mohammad Maarouf, 45.

Relatives visited the Mujtahid Hospital in central Damascus in search of their bodies but staff denied them access to the morgue and referred them to the GSS branch in al-Qadam, the witness said.

An official there showed them photographs on a phone of all four men, dead. No cause of death was given and none could be ascertained from the images, the relative said.

The official told the family to collect the bodies from the Mujtahid hospital but staff there denied they had them. 

"We haven't been able to find them, and we're too scared to ask anyone," the relative told Reuters.

Mohammad Halbouni, Mujtahid Hospital's director, told Reuters that any bodies from al-Qadam were taken directly to the forensic medicine department next door. Staff there said they had no information to share.

The interior ministry spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether the forces at al-Qadam station were linked to the deaths.

Sharaa has announced the dissolution of all rebel groups and their planned integration into Syria's restructured defence ministry. But full command-and-control over the various, sometimes rival, factions remains elusive. 

Four other men seized the same night were found in an orchard near al-Qadam, with gunshot wounds indicating they were killed "execution-style," according to a second resident, who told Reuters the family swiftly buried the bodies. 

Reuters was unable to confirm independently the details of her account.

Another set of four men were confirmed dead by their relatives, who received photographs of the bodies on messaging platform WhatsApp on Thursday, nearly three weeks after they were taken.

The pictures, reviewed by Reuters, depicted four men on the ground with blood and bruises on their faces. One of them was identified by the relative as Samer Asaad, a 45-year-old with a mental handicap who was taken on the night of March 6.

Most of those seized remain missing. 

They include university student Ali Rustom, 25, and his father Tamim Rustom, a 65-year-old retired maths teacher, two relatives told Reuters. "We have no proof, no bodies, no information," one said.

'ALL I WANT IS TO LEAVE'

A relative of Rabih Aqel, a mechanic, said his family had inquired at the local police station and other security agencies but were told they had no information on Aqel's whereabouts. 

She drew parallels with forced disappearances under Assad, when thousands vanished into a labyrinthine prison system. In many cases, families would learn years later their relatives had died in detention. 

She and the other witnesses said they have not been approached by the fact-finding committee.

Farhan, the committee spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday its members had interviewed witnesses in several coastal districts and had two more cities there to visit.

All the witnesses said they felt under pressure to leave al-Qadam specifically because they were Alawite. Some already had. 

One young resident said armed men had come to his home several times in the weeks after Assad's ouster, demanding proof the family owned the house and had not been affiliated to the ousted Assad family. 

He and his family have since fled, asking Sunni Muslim neighbours to look after their home. 

Others said they had stopped going to work or were only moving around in the daytime to avoid possible arrest.

Another woman in her sixties said she was looking to sell her house in al-Qadam because of the risks her husband or sons would be taken. "After what happened, all I want is to leave the area."

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily, Timour Azhari and Feras Dalatey; Editing by Daniel Flynn)