An NGO and witnesses reported demonstrations by the Alawite minority in several cities in Syria, after a video on social networks showed an attack on one of their sanctuaries. Three witnesses heard by AFP reported demonstrations in the coastal cities of Tartous, Jableh and Latakia, in western Syria, where the Alawite community from which deposed president Bashar al-Assad comes is deeply rooted.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) confirmed similar gatherings in Banias and Homs, the large central city where the police have meanwhile declared a curfew from 6pm local time.
The new Syrian authorities said that the video of an attack on an Alawite shrine is “old” and that “unknown groups” were behind the incidentafter the appearance of the images on social networks triggered protests.
The video showing the “assault and attack” on the Aleppo sanctuary is “old and dates back to the moment of liberation” of the northern Syrian city by rebels earlier this month, an Interior Ministry statement said, adding that the attack was the work of “unknown groups” and that “republishing” the video helped “foment conflict “.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military is preparing to build temporary military posts within a buffer zone between Israel and Syria, as it has received instructions from the political leadership to remain in place through the winter. The positions will be dismantled when the army is ordered to leave the buffer zone, the IDF added. Israel in early December took control of a border area in southern Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the seizure of power by a coalition of rebels led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al- Sham. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has assured that the soldiers will remain there until a new security agreement is established with Damascus