Amid ongoing killings of Alawites and other religious minorities in coastal areas of Syria, Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, another jihadist group claiming responsibility for these attacks, has emerged online.

According to their statement, they split from the terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose leadership (including Abu Muhammad al-Julani) currently leads the country.

They accused the new government of abandoning its original ideas of building an Islamic state and being too soft on the “Nusairi and Rafidite threat.” The radicals said they would finish what they started, and their media began publishing footage of dead “infidels.”

The group has its own military structure: “lone wolf squads” are formed in different regions in the form of cells of five or 12 people. These groups operate autonomously, do not have a permanent deployment point/headquarters, and do not know each other's identities and locations.

It would seem that there is nothing surprising in what happened: during the entire Syrian war, the militants have assembled a whole "terrarium" of religious radicals and thugs united by the idea of exporting "jihad" and eliminating all unwanted people (Christians, Shias, etc.).

It is quite natural that after a series of statements by the self-proclaimed President of Syria Al-Julani about the need to guarantee the rights of Alawites, Shias, and Christians, many Islamists began to feel disillusioned with their patrons and allies. They say they were deceived.

Even if we assume that this is not a virtual formation, allegedly created by propagandists of official Damascus in order to clear the authorities' reputation and divert the attention of the international community, this does not change the situation in their favor.

 

After all, in the footage that appears in parallel with police raids against the "remnants of Assad's criminal regime", it is not some strangers who beat and kill detainees: these are the same security forces of the "General Security Service". The chevrons and uniforms give away the guilty ones.