“The jihadists are trying to show how progressive they are. But we don’t believe them!”: Syria’s minorities fear the anti-Assad rebels’ rise

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Aleppo in two days

A Su-35 fighter jet and two Su-24 bombers appeared in the skies over Idlib province around 10 a.m. The silence was shattered by the sound of explosions as plumes of smoke rose into the air. The events were captured on video by a volunteer from the Syrian animal shelter Ernesto’s Sanctuary for Cats in Syria.

“Hello, this is our good morning today! We hope yours was or is about to be much better,” the volunteer commented on the video. Like many Syrians, Ernesto’s staff members have had to adapt to working in a war zone. The shelter has operated since 2015, caring for over 2,600 cats and other animals. Initially based in Aleppo, the shelter relocated to Idlib after Assad’s regime bombardment. In 2020, a ceasefire agreement between opposition forces and the Syrian government halted major fighting in the region, even if Syrian and Russian aircraft continued to strike Idlib periodically.

At the shelter, global political events are assessed by “signs” that manifest in the local environment. For example, shortly before the militants’ recent advance on Aleppo, more abandoned animals appeared, food supplies dwindled, and nearby villages began evacuating residents. Airstrikes also intensified. One strike damaged the shelter building, injuring a staff member in the leg. Terrified animals hid under benches, and the clinic ultimately had to close because the building required so many repairs.

Civilians from Kurdish-populated areas were no more prepared for the regime’s fall than those rescuing cats and dogs. “For everyone I know, this offensive was a complete surprise — especially the fact that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham entered Aleppo without any resistance from Assad’s regime,” says Aras Yussef, a research fellow at the Kurdish Peace Institute in Qamishlo in northern Syria. Her family lives in Aleppo, and they are in communication daily. “People were expecting all sorts of things. Some feared that government forces would retake Kurdish territories. But no one anticipated this scenario.”

On Nov. 27, rebels advanced on Aleppo from opposition-held Idlib and Turkish-occupied border regions of Syria, which are predominantly inhabited by Kurds. The main group leading the offensive was the Sunni radical faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In just 10 hours, the Islamists took control of 20 towns and villages, seized the 46th Regiment’s military base, and blocked the M5 federal highway. By Dec. 1, they had captured Aleppo itself — including the city’s airport — and continued their advance south toward Hama in the neighboring province.

A source in Aleppo told The Insider that Syrian military forces anticipated the fall of the city earlier than others — and did nothing to prevent it:

“The Syrian government soldiers and military had already left [by Thursday]. They were not there. They had stolen all the money from the banks and they left. The rebels were able to easily take over Aleppo because there was no fight, no actual campaign.”

The group also entered Hama, the provincial capital, but government forces maintained control over the city until Dec. 6. Notably, there were no reports of large-scale fighting within the urban center itself. Syria’s Ministry of Defense claimed it had withdrawn troops to avoid clashes with radicals in residential neighborhoods of the country’s fourth-largest city.

Rising prices and broken communications: Life in Syrian cities

Following the militants’ arrival in Aleppo, a curfew was imposed. Shops and markets remained open, but within three days, the city began experiencing shortages of water, bread, and fuel, says Mohammad, a resident of the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsood district. The Insider’s conversation with Mohammad took place before the rebels’ capture of Damascus.

“The roads are blocked. Fuel used to come from northeastern Syria, but now there’s fighting on those routes. It’s impossible to travel on them. My relatives are now in Qamishlo, and there are long lines of fuel and food trucks stuck there, unable to move,” Mohammad explained.

An Armenian student from Aleppo shared similar sentiments: “It all happened so fast we still cannot process the situation fully. The prices of food, medicine and fuel have tripled. We don’t know how much more we can handle this, especially since we were in an economic deficit already prior to the escalation.”

Another Armenian resident of Aleppo told The Insider: “No one is working, everyone is scared, prices in the markets have skyrocketed, and there’s no bread or water. At least we still have a steady supply of electricity.”

But the health of supply chains is far from the only area of concern. “The HTS is not touching people yet, trying to save face,” Mohammad said. “But everyone is very scared, especially the minorities — Kurds, Yazidis, Christians. Aleppo has a huge number of Christians, 10 percent of the population. The jihadists are trying to show how progressive they are and how they respect international law, promising to protect all minorities. But we don't believe them, because in the past they killed or expelled such people and took away their property. Now they just want to put the West's vigilance to sleep.”

All of The Insider's sources fear that the Islamists will eventually return to their former brutality. “Regular people, normal people, civilians, for this moment, all they seek is safety and to not be in engagements, in fighting with any organizations. Some oppose the Assad regime, some are neutral, but the main concern of all Kurdish people is that they stay safe and that what happened to Afrin and Serekaniye does not repeat against them,” says Aras Yussef.

But pessimism does not reign everywhere. According to Ali, a resident of Damascus, the fall of the Assad clan has turned into a celebration in the Syrian capital. “I feel that 80 percent of our residents are happy because we have some kind of security. And there is also hope that the sanctions will be lifted, the situation will improve, and life will be easier,” the former teacher told The Insider. Ali added that the security situation in Damascus is tolerable, with HTS fighters not harming anyone, but he noted that there are isolated cases of robbery and looting.

Things are much worse in northern Syria, where the Syrian National Army is notorious for massacring the Kurdish population. “They have more than 30 groups fighting within their ranks, many of which are known for their atrocities and are officially recognized as terrorists in the U.S. and other countries,” says Mohammad.

In Aleppo province, Kurds live mainly in the Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafieh neighborhoods in the north and northeast of the city, as well as north of Aleppo in a region called Shahba. “Everyone in Shahba are displaced people from Afrin,” Aras Yussef said. “They are now besieged and they are being attacked by Turkey and SNA factions, not HTS. Because some people are confused, it’s not HTS, it’s the SNA faction and Turkey, and they have to flee again.”

As Omar, a grocer in Aleppo, told The Insider: “There are many Muslims in the streets celebrating the victory. Some shops are closed. The reason is the unstable exchange rate in the market. Communications are down, but not completely. It works for a while and then suddenly disappears, but the Ministry of Communications has promised to solve the problems. The airports of Aleppo and Damascus are not working.”

“We fear bloodshed. And there will definitely be a lot of refugees,” says. Mohammad. “Some residents have stayed because Aleppo is their roots and their home. They say they'd rather be killed, but they don't want to leave. Still, many are indeed choosing to flee. These are Kurds, Christians, Armenians, and Shiites.”

Evacuation

Many residents of rebel-held areas are leaving for what they consider safer territory controlled by Kurdish militias.

The rebels have opened a corridor to Raqqa province — which is largely under Kurdish control — for those who want to leave Aleppo and other areas that have fallen under opposition control. The length of the corridor is about 200 kilometers: part of it goes through the areas captured by the militants, and part of it goes through the Kurdish areas. People are going there in buses and cars, and columns of people have formed for miles. In one day alone, at least 10,000 people arrived in Raqqa from Tel Rifat and northern Aleppo. Tent camps are being set up near the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates River.

The roads to Tabqa are relatively safe for now, according to The Insider's contacts on the ground. But what will happen to the humanitarian corridor is impossible to predict. “Many people are not ready to talk to the media, people are in shock and prefer to keep quiet, information on social networks is fragmented,” says Yussef. The press service of the Kurdish armed groups reported the kidnapping of 120 cars that left the north of Aleppo for Raqqa. They were stopped by rebels and driven in an unknown direction.

In the ongoing chaos, no corridors provide total safety for evacuees. The Insider knows of two confirmed deaths of Yazidi Kurds during the evacuation. Ahmed Hassou, from the village of Kibar, died while trying to flee the town of Tel Rifat towards Afrin (his wife was shot and hospitalized, but survived). And Mamdouh Bakr Othman was killed on Nov. 29 near Aleppo, with his family stating that his body bore the marks of three gunshots.

In the first days of December, there was a lack of food, water, and medicine in the refugee camps, as well as a lack of blankets and heaters during a period when the temperature dropped to nearly zero degrees (32°F) at night. There were not enough doctors, medical staff, or volunteers. “My friends who went to bring their families from there said there was no medical assistance,” says Aras Yussef. She continues:

“Yesterday, a 4 month-old-baby named Nouh Mohammad Rasho died of a cold after his family reached Raqqa by caravan that transferred them from Shahba. He is originally from Afrin.”

“We can't imagine living under Turkish rule”

In the early days of the offensive, some Christians left for areas of Aleppo controlled by Kurdish formations. Now, according to The Insider's interlocutors, many Armenians and Christians are trying to leave Aleppo through a humanitarian corridor toward Raqqa. Despite rampant fears, the first Christian service under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took place in Aleppo on Dec. 3. Metropolitan Ephrem (Maalouli) of Aleppo, the hierarch of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, said he would remain in the city.

“In the Aziziyah neighborhood, one of the rebels broke a Christmas tree, but it was rebuilt later, I don't know who did it,” a Syrian-Armenian woman from Aleppo told The Insider. “The next day, we heard opposition fighters telling locals: ‘Don't be afraid, we're not against you, our actions are against the Syrian government, and your life will be better.’”

Up to 10,000 Armenians remain in the areas under the control of the militants, said Zare Sinanyan, the chief authorized representative of the Republic of Armenia for diaspora affairs. He noted that although communications are not working well, he is trying to keep in touch. According to Sinanyan, the Armenians of Aleppo cannot leave the city. He described the situation as “tense.”

“I think the local Armenian association knew something was going to happen, because the day before the rebels came, that is, Thursday, Nov. 28, they planned to put guards in front of their building,” an Aleppo resident, an Armenian woman who did not want to give her name, told The Insider.

Many Armenians see the offensive by Turkish-linked militants as an expansion by Ankara. The Armenian community in the Kurdish autonomous region condemned the rebels' actions and called for support to be provided to the Kurdish forces. Diaspora representative Maria Ibrahim called the militants' offensive a “Turkish occupation” aimed at Ankara's seizure of Syrian territory and urged the international community to protect the lives of civilians. The Armenian Embassy said that organized evacuation is still impossible and called on its compatriots living in Aleppo and surrounding areas to “completely rule out attempts to leave the city.”

“We hope that the roads out of the city will open and we can leave safely because we can't imagine living under Turkish rule,” says an Armenian student from Aleppo. “We are afraid and unsure of what might happen tomorrow.”

“The unknown is scary,” another Syrian-Armenian woman from Aleppo told The Insider. “So far, nothing bad has happened in the city. There is more electricity, which is good. The lights are on several times a day for longer periods of time. But these are such small things compared to the possible massacres that everyone is talking about.”

Armenians in Aleppo interviewed by The Insider fear that the invasion by pro-Turkish militias will threaten their identity.

“We don't know what will happen later, especially since we are Armenians and the opposition groups are backed by Turkey,” worries another one of The Insider's interlocutors, an Armenian woman from Aleppo. “What will happen to our Armenian schools, our language? Maybe in a month they will demand that women wear the hijab, or forbid us to speak Armenian to teach it in schools. Maybe they will force us to learn Turkish or involve our youth in military service. We can imagine how Turkey will approach these issues.”

Clips have circulated on social media showing Aleppo Christians saying the city is calm. However, Christians and Armenians are not inclined to go public with their criticisms in the face of an Islamist invasion, and The Insider's Syrian-Armenian interlocutors take a skeptical view of these videos. Nevertheless, the situation with bread, water and electricity is getting better, say local residents. And most importantly of all, the rebels have not seriously harassed any Christians yet.

“The challenge now for our [Kurdish] community is to make sure that our rights are respected, that they are written in the new constitution, that our language continues to exist. We have to fight for our national identity to be represented in the new government,” argues Ali from Damascus.

What does Turkey want?

Ankara does not acknowledge its involvement in the escalation of the conflict. Speaking at the UN, Turkish Permanent Representative Ahmet Yildiz said that the unwillingness of the deposed rulers in Damascus to engage in dialogue with the opposition led to the renewed violence. In a recent conversation with Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stressed that Ankara supports the territorial integrity of Syria and seeks to resolve conflicts in the country.

And yet, on the ground, all of the Kurds who spoke with The Insider, as well as many Syrians, blame Ankara for the escalation, saying Turkey is directly involved in the conflict in pursuit of achieving its own goals. Ankara sees the Syrian Kurds as a terrorist threat, accuses them of having ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and is trying to push them away from its borders — if not to destroy them altogether, which is what most Kurds themselves believe.

“Turkey and the Syrian People's Army are taking advantage of the current situation. For them, this is an opportunity to attack the Shahba enclave, as well as cities and towns where Kurds displaced from Afrin in 2018 are taking refuge,” says Aras Yussef.

The number of Kurds in Syria is estimated at 2-3 million, representing 10-15% of the country's pre-war population. After the outbreak of the civil war in 2011, the Kurds declared autonomy in their regions under the name of Rojava — officially the “Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria.” This step was made possible when the government of Bashar al-Assad, focused on counterinsurgency efforts elsewhere, loosened its grip on the country’s Kurdish north.

The autonomous area is divided into the regions of Afrin, Jizre, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij, and Deir ez-Zor, which in turn are made up of smaller units — cantons, provinces, districts, and municipalities. The military wing of the Kurdish forces is represented by the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF). It is against them that Turkey and its allied Syrian People's Army (SNA) are fighting. And it is these areas that Ankara wants to take control of, according to Syrians interviewed by The Insider.

Even after the capture of Afrin in 2018, Erdogan claimed that Turkey will continue to fight in Syria until it eliminates the “terrorist corridor” that runs through Manbij, Kobani, Tell Abyad, Ras al-Ayn [also known by the Kurdish name Serekaniye], and Qamishlo. Erdogan also planned to use the “buffer zone” to accommodate at least 1.5 million Syrian refugees who fled to Turkey after the start of the Syrian Civil War.

Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli added fuel to the fire by saying — in parliament — that Aleppo is both a Turkic and a Muslim city.

“When the Syrian government refused to sit at the negotiating table with the Turks on Turkish terms, that was the main factor [in the escalation],” says Kamal, a journalist based in Latakia, located on the country’s Mediterranean coast. “Turkey seized the moment when the entire region was exhausted by the war. Hezbollah and the IRGC are exhausted after the Israeli attacks, and Russia is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. This is the most opportune time for Turkey.” He added that many in Syria were shocked by Russia's extremely muted response to the attack, as well as by Iran's lack of assistance.

But a week into the militants’ offensive, civilians were increasingly thinking not about the causes, but the consequences of what was taking place around them. “When the opportunity arises, we will definitely leave, but we don't know where or when, because we have no connections outside the country,” says one of The Insider's interviewees, a Syrian-Armenian woman from Aleppo. Like its other citizens, however, she hopes Syria will eventually have a government that represents the interests of all its ethnic and religious groups.