DAMASCUS: Syria’s interim President Ahmed Sharaa said on Monday that mass killings of members of ousted president Bashar Al Assad’s minority sect were a threat to his mission to unite the country, promising to punish those responsible, including his own allies.

In an interview held after hundreds died in four days of clashes between members of the Alawi sect and Syria’s new authorities, Sharaa said pro-Assad groups, “backed by foreigners”, were to blame for the bloodshed. But he acknowledged that revenge killings had followed.

“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” he said from the Damascus presidential palace, where Assad resided until Sharaa’s forces toppled him on Dec 8, forcing the ousted ruler to flee to Moscow.

“We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us,” the new Syrian ruler said.

In a wide-ranging interview, Sharaa also said his government had had no contacts with the United States since President Donald Trump took office. He repeated pleas for Washington to lift sanctions imposed in the Assad era.

He also held out the prospect of restoring relations with Moscow, Assad’s backer throughout the war, which is trying to retain two major military bases in Syria.

He rejected criticism from Israel, which has captured territory in southern Syria since Assad was toppled. And he said he aimed to resolve differences with Kurds, including by meeting the head of a Kurdish-led group long backed by Washington.

‘Opportunity for revenge’

While he blamed the outbreak of violence in recent days on a former military unit loyal to Assad’s brother and an unspecified foreign power, he acknowledged that in response “many parties entered the Syrian coast and many violations occurred”.

“It became an opportunity for revenge” for years of pent-up grievances, he said, although he said the situation had since been largely contained.

Sharaa said 200 members of the security forces had been killed in the unrest, while declining to put the overall death toll pending an investigation.

After years in the field at the helm of a guerilla movement that broke off from Al Qaeda, the 42-year-old son of an Arab nationalist was soft-spoken. His voice sometimes barely registered above a whisper during the interview, held after midnight on Monday.

“To be honest, my chest tightens in this palace. I’m astonished by how much evil against society emanated from every corner,” Sharaa said.

The unrest of recent days, the bloodiest since Assad was ousted, was his biggest setback as he seeks international legitimacy, to fully lift US and other Western sanctions and assert his rule over a country fractured by 14 years of conflict.

His forces rode into the capital pledging to rule for all of Syria’s communities — Sunnis, Alawis, Druze, Christians, Shias, Kurds and Armenians — while trying to assuage domestic and foreign concern over his Islamist background.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2025