J. G. Fox The Spectator
No one covers up their war crimes any more. They film them, celebrate them, post them on X. So we have videos from Syria this week showing Islamist fighters making terrified Alawite men get on their hands and knees and howl like dogs. In one video, the victims crawl along a street spattered with blood and gore as a bearded gunman clubs them with a wooden pole. The camera comes to rest on half a dozen bodies. Then we hear rifle shots.
There has been a massacre of Alawites in Syria this past week: hundreds of civilians have been killed. The killings were perpetrated by the militias that put Syria’s new President, Ahmed al-Sharaa –formerly the militia leader known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani – in power. For some, the true face of the country’s new rulers has been revealed. At the very least, whether the guilty men are punished will tell us what kind of country Syria has become after the fall of the Assad dictatorship.