Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has been forced out of the country by rebel groups.
For Syria’s Christian minority, this brings much uncertainty about the future.
And Christians in Syria are on edge following the toppling of the Assad regime.
Who just took over Syria?
Following a sweeping and largely uncontested offensive by rebel groups, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was forced to flee the country.
Assad is now in Moscow and has been granted political asylum by Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had backed the Assad regime in the past, but with much of the Russian military currently tied up in the Ukraine conflict, the rebel groups that have fought against Assad were finally successful – at least in the areas not controlled by Russia, the United States, Turkey, or Israel – in taking over the country.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS)declared victory over the Assad regime at a mosque in Damascus.
Al-Jolani and his HTS group are a breakaway faction from Al-Qaeda and ISIS, and are still listed as a terrorist group by the U.S.
According to a Daily Mail report, “He became a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by the notorious Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who later led the even more extreme Islamic State of Iraq.”
Under Al-Jolani, HTS – which along with other rebel factions have reportedly received Western support (read US taxpayer dollars) via Turkey, a NATO member – has advocated for Sharia law.
What a difference 7 years makes.
At least we can file “CIA is responsible for Islamic terrorism” under “things that used to be called conspiracy theories, but are now just fucking obvious.”
I love when the empire discredits itself like this.https://t.co/AEqghHLhZD pic.twitter.com/PgpFPY08WR
— David Hundeyin (@DavidHundeyin) December 8, 2024
HTS has tried to re-brand themselves as a moderate group, and so far has claimed they will respect the rights of religious minorities in Syria, including Christians.
“No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them,” al-Jolani claimed in an interview with CNN.
Nevertheless, as an Islamic organization, HTS may give many Christians in the region a reason to be worried.
Many Christians in Syria had supported the Assad regime for lack of better options.
“It seems sometimes that all the countries of the world are against Assad, but we feel we don’t have any other alternative,” Archbishop of Aleppo Jean-Clement Jeanbart said during a 2015 interview with Crux. “Honest to God, this is the situation. I think [Assad] wants to reform. Let him prove his good intentions, and let’s give him the chance to see what he will do.”
Assad was a brutal dictator, but he was at least a secular one.
The dictator was himself a member of a religious minority, the Alawites.
In a way, for Syria’s Christians, Assad was at least the devil they knew.
While the warmongers cheer Assad being overthrown, Christians will now be persecuted under sharia law which has now been declared in Syria.
Damascus is one of the earliest places where Christianity began.
I’m praying for them. 🙏
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) December 9, 2024
Throughout history, Christians and other religious minorities in Islamic nations and elsewhere have faced persecution.
With the historic exception of the Al-Andalus – the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula in modern-day Spain – from the earliest Islamic conquests and the Ottoman Empire, Christians were brutally persecuted and martyred by the Islamists.
And more recently when Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein was deposed, Iraqi Christians were slaughtered and forced to flee the country.
700,000 Christians remained in Iraq according the United Nations.
And according to the June 2024 UN report, at the hands of ISIS, Christians who stayed in Iraq faced “forcible transfer, persecution, pillage, sexual violence and slavery, and other inhumane acts such as forced conversions and the intentional destruction of cultural heritage.”
Today only 150,000 Christians remain in Iraq.
Vice President-Elect J.D. Vance weighed in on the situation.
As President Trump said, this is not our fight and we should stay out of it.
Aside from that, opinions like the below make me nervous. The last time this guy was celebrating events in Syria we saw the mass slaughter of Christians and a refugee crisis that destabilized Europe. https://t.co/rUsbudKtZP
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 8, 2024
“As President Trump said, this is not our fight and we should stay out of it,” he wrote on X. “Aside from that, opinions like the below make me nervous. The last time this guy was celebrating events in Syria we saw the mass slaughter of Christians and a refugee crisis that destabilized Europe.”
Many of “the rebels” are a literal offshoot of ISIS. One can hope they’ve moderated. Time will tell.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 8, 2024
Syrian Christians are currently faced with frightening uncertainty and could certainly use more prayers right now.
