Rising Sectarian Violence In Syria
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In Syria, a wave of violence has gripped a part of the country that had been aligned with the ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad. Hundreds of Alawites were killed in a region near the coast, and hundreds more have fled their homes in fear. Alawites are a religious minority that the Assad family is part of, and the clashes highlight some of the challenges the new government faces in uniting the country.

The government has now sealed off the area where the violence took place. But as NPR's Jane Araf reports from a different part of Syria, this isn't the first instance of violence against Alawites. And a warning, this report contains graphic descriptions of violence. In the village of Maryamine, a few miles from the major city of Humps in western Syria...

We enter the home of Wissam Bilal and walk into a course of grief. It's late January, just five days since Bilal, who is 40, died.

was dragged out of the house by masked gunmen and shot dead. The home still looks like a crime scene. His sister takes me by the hand into ransacked bedrooms, past a sofa with the cushions shot out, a TV with a bullet hole.

They shot in front of a four-year-old child, says Bilal's older sister, Ibtisam Bilal. She says the boy is so traumatized he imitates the sound of gunfire. His widow, Maise Mohammed, says the gunmen took all their money and their gold jewelry, anything of value, and even things like their photo albums that weren't. Ibtisam says the gunmen called them pigs and drove away in her brother's car.

Mohamed is still in shock. Where is public security, she asks. Ibtisam says they want international protection. Bilal was a car dealer who had been a low-level security officer, a job he took because they needed the money, his sister says. The residents of Maryameen are mostly Alawite, an offshoot of Shia Islam, and the same sect has toppled President Bashar al-Assad.

They and other minorities seen as supporting the former regime have been targeted by Sunni Arab fighters. This is not the liberation of Syria, Ibtisam says, referring to the name of the group now in power in Damascus. This is the destruction of Syria. Nine-year-old Haider says he wants his dad.

He describes seeing gunmen throwing his father to the ground and covering his head before taking him away. Mohammed is now a 30-year-old widow with three young children. The family blames the new government for not protecting them. To whom do we complain, she asks. Who will return a father to his child?

The attacks are an extremely sensitive issue for a government trying to persuade citizens they will be safe in this new Syria. A top political official in the Homs governor's office acknowledges the killings, but says the gunmen who entered Maryamine were not connected with government forces. These are criminals, says Obeid Al-Arnaud. He blames regime remnants trying to sabotage the new government.

He says gunmen who rampaged through the village are now in jail. But Ibtisam Bilal told NPR a month later that they had still heard nothing from authorities.

At a shop on the main street, we talked to more victims of the day-long attack on the village. A young man, his broken hands wrapped in blue bandages, says masked gunmen beat him with sticks after dragging him out by the hair. His elderly mother says they stopped only when she kissed the leader's boots.

He gave her his name, a common nom de guerre of a Chechen fighter. None of these victims want their names used because they fear for their lives. One young man says the gunman told them to bark like dogs and recorded it with their phones. Another tells us his father was taken to prison and hasn't been seen since. His father says his son is still missing.

We later find out his family found his body in the morgue.

The governor's office in Homs did not respond to requests for comment. Even the elderly were beaten. Youssef, 68, says the men made him kneel and pointed a gun at his chest before robbing him. We want a country where there's coexistence, Youssef says, of multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian Syria. He says they have no other choice.

Jane Araf, NPR News, Mary Amin, Syria. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.

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