Syria’s Alawites Under Siege
Ali Hashem reports from Damascus on Syria’s Alawite community and the sectarian conflict there.
Having dinner in one of Damascus' trendy restaurants might give the feeling that Syria is calm, and all the news circulating here and there are baseless rumors. Tables are fully booked, people from different areas and various sectarian backgrounds are sitting together and sharing the same food; smiley faces refute all claims that Syria is in the midst of a bloody civil war, till the sound of artillery shakes the place and uproots all feelings of safety and peace.
In the capital of Syria people in mixed, poor neighborhoods are living nightmares; they know that their best days are behind, and what is to come is much more dangerous than all that they are going through nowadays.
Al-Tadamon is one of Damascus' hot flashpoints; the area is divided into three main streets, an Alawite, a Druze, and a Sunni.
The neighborhood is surrounded with four other flashpoints, making it a hub for the Free Syrian Army, a reality that forced Alawites to flee toward safer areas in the capital or to their coastal strongholds in Tortuous and Lattakiya.
