The popular uprising that erupted in Syria in March 2011 was largely limited to the Sunni Arab majority and was eventually led by Islamist activists. It confronted the country’s religious and ethnic minorities with existential challenges. Caught between the anvil of anarchy and the hammer of Islamism, they feared for Syria’s future as a secular state, one where their communities could comfortably live.
The fall of the regime in December and the rise of former jihadists to power have not allayed these concerns. Three minorities in particular – the Kurds, Druze and Alawites – are regionally concentrated and seek some form of autonomy in Syria. The Druze and Allawites are Arabic-speaking heterodox sects whom fundamentalist Sunni Muslims regard as heretics. The Kurds are Sunni Muslims with a distinct ethnicity and their own language and cultural traditions.
Each of these three minorities had a different relationship with the Ba’ath regime. Their relationships with the new government in Damascus are yet to be finalized.
The Alawites
The Alawites in Syria constituted nearly 12 percent of the country’s population before the civil war. They are mainly located in the mountainous coastal region of northwest Syria. During the French mandate, they were granted autonomy and only gradually integrated into the new Syrian state following independence.
The most significant turning point in the history of the community came after the coup d’etat in 1963 led by the Arab nationalist Ba’ath Party. The Ba’ath and the army were the two main channels through which Alawites from the rural periphery were able to upgrade their status. The rise of the Ba’ath Party in 1963, and even more so the rise of the Neo-Ba’ath Party in 1966, strengthened the position of Alawite officers within the upper echelons of power.
Hafiz al-Asad’s rise to power in 1970 signaled more than anything else that the center of gravity of Syria’s national politics had shifted to a rural elite that entirely displaced the urban elite. As a result, in its early years, the new regime encountered strong opposition from Syria’s urban centers, for example, in the regime’s secularization policy expressed in a 1973 constitutional amendment and in its socioeconomic policies that benefited the masses and the periphery. This resistance developed into a violent conflict by the mid-1970s, with the Muslim Brotherhood leading a jihadist rebellion in some cities, only decisively defeated in 1982. This defeat of the Brotherhood marked the beginning of a partnership, albeit unbalanced, between Alawite military officers and the Sunni civilian elite, which became a pillar of the regime’s longevity.
President Hafiz al-Asad’s regime did not support the rule of the Alawite minority over the Sunni majority, despite tight control by individual Alawites of regime security apparatus. The regime did not pursue a policy of exclusion towards the Sunni majority, nor did it direct all economic resources to the Alawite areas. For three decades, Asad’s regime remained open to the urban elites, largely Sunni, although the partnership was necessarily unequal, because in keeping with the nature of totalitarian regimes, the security and military arms of the government always maintained an upper hand over civilians.
The outbreak of the Arab Spring uprising in early March 2011 presented the regime with an existential challenge. As the uprising developed into a rebellion, and then a civil war, Alawites rallied to defend the regime. Tens of thousands of young Alawites were killed during the long years of conflict (2011-2018). The rise of rebel jihadist organizations only strengthened communal mobilization behind the regime, increasing the perception that regime downfall would pose a threat not only to Alawite ascendancy in the army but also to the entire community. President Bashar al-Asad fueled these existential fears, among the Alawites and other minorities.
With the demise of the Asad regime in December 2024, the Alawite community has been left without national-level leadership. Local dignitaries and religious figures are now trying to carve out a path for the community in the shadow of the new regime, which identifies the community with the Asad era and excludes Alawites from the government, and especially from the new military and security institutions.
The Druze
Despite only forming approximately three percent of the population, the Druze have played a significant role in Syria’s history. The Great Syrian Revolt against French rule broke out in Jabal al-Druze (“Mountain of the Druze”) in southwest Syria led by Sultan al-Atrash between 1925 and 1927.
The Ba’ath Party’s coup d’état in 1963 and rise to power in Syria was a watershed moment in the country’s internal politics, paving the way for minority groups—in particular the Alawites and Druze—to play a formative role in governing the country and leading in the army. The Druze became far more involved in internal Syrian politics, holding high posts in both the army and the Party.
Bashar al-Asad’s rise to power in the year 2000 had no significant effect on the Druze’s relationship with the regime. The popular uprising that erupted in the southern city of Dara’a in March 2011 did not extend to their stronghold in Houran. The vast majority of the Druze remained loyal to the regime, though several intellectuals and elite figures – Rima Flehan, Muntaha al-Atrash, Jaber al-Shufi – supported the uprising. Hence, the rebel leaders found it very difficult to recruit Druze, and the vast majority of Druze soldiers in the Syrian army remained loyal to the state.
The increasing Islamization of the opposition, the rise of jihadist organizations, and the disintegration of state authority drove many Druze into the arms of the regime during the first years of the uprising. The community’s fear of jihadist Islam was validated in June 2015, when dozens of Druze were massacred in a small village close to Idlib city in northern Syria by Islamic jihadist militants from the Jabhat al-Nusrah organization. The 2015 massacre was followed by raids on Druze villages carried out by the Islamic State in July 2018, which resulted in the deaths of about 260 Druze and the kidnapping of 30 women and children. Asad’s forces made no effort to prevent the attacks.
Until recent years, the Druze spiritual leadership, known as Mashyakhat al-Aql (Sheikhdom of the Druze), remained committed to the regime. Many Druze concluded during the civil war that the regime remained the least of all evils. However, Sheikh Wahid al-Bal’us, a popular religious leader, organized an armed protest movement that sought to defend Jabal al-Druze during the civil war. When he was assassinated in September 2015, apparently by agents of the regime, his death failed to trigger any immediate shift in the Druze attitude against the regime.
The year 2015 marked the beginning of a change in the relationship between the Syrian Druze and the Ba’ath regime. Great numbers of Druze avoided enlisting in the Syrian army, unless the regime would agree to station them in their native region. The Druze realized that their existence as a legitimate minority was an idea not embraced by all, which deepened the Syrian tragedy for them, and the outcome of the war proved just how much their existence depended on the same Syrian regime that had led them into poverty. Despite civil protests against the economic and social crises caused by the war, however, they did not rebel against the regime.
The Druze welcomed the collapse of the regime in December 2024, but that does not mean they showed any enthusiasm for the arrival to Damascus of Ahmad al-Shara’a. They do not allow the new regime’s militias to gather in their area, and they are unwilling to hand over their weapons. In the words of Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, the Druze declare that they do not trust the new regime owing to its jihadist background.
Events in early 2025 only increased the anxiety of the Druze: the establishment of an army whose officers are all former jihadist commanders, a government with no representation of minorities, and a supposedly five-year transition period. Worst of all are the massacres of Alawites, which the Druze fear might happen to them.
Two factors have to date discouraged the new regime from interfering with the Druze areas: the Druze have not handed over their weapons and Israel has warned that it will act if the new regime moves against the Druze.
The Kurds
The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, and the Kurdish issue returned to political center stage after the uprising in 2011. Most of the Kurdish population of Syria resides in three regions located along the northern and northeastern borders adjoining Turkey and Iraq.
Syria gained control over these regions through the Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence, which was signed in 1936 but never ratified by France. Nevertheless, it constituted an important stage of Syria’s road to independence and consolidation, leading to the imposition of the authority of the Syrian state over territory that included Jabal al-Druze, the Alawite region along the Mediterranean coast, and the Kurdish-populated al-Jazira (the “island” of fertile land in upper Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers).
The Syrian state has never recognized the Kurds as a national minority. The “Kurdish problem” has accompanied the country since its independence and, under the hegemony of the pan-Arab ideology of the Ba’ath regime that took over Syria in 1963, the Kurdish citizens of Syria were denied national, cultural, and civil rights.
The policy of discrimination against the Kurds intensified after the Ba’ath came to power in 1963. The Kurdish language was not recognized as an official language, and Kurdish culture did not receive any assistance from the state. The Ba’ath in Syria encouraged Arab citizens to settle in the Kurdish areas, especially the al-Jazira region, a policy similar to that pursued by the Iraqi Ba’ath regime towards the Kirkuk region in northern Iraq. Beginning in the mid-1970s, dozens of Arab villages were established in the north of al-Jazira where thousands of Arab families settled, while the local Kurdish population was expelled.
However, in spite of all this, the Ba’ath regime’s relationship with the Kurds was not always confrontational and conflictual. The regime used Kurdish militia from time to time in actions against the Muslim Brotherhood in the north. In a sense, the struggle against jihadist organizations created the basis for a certain modus vivendi between the Ba’athists and the Kurdish militia in the years leading up to the regime’s fall.
This reality of exclusion and deprivation of the Kurdish population continued until the outbreak of the popular uprising in Syria in March 2011. The uprising and the deterioration caused by the civil war in Syria gave the Kurds a historic opportunity to establish de facto autonomy in northeastern Syria. They established a significant military force with the help of the US during the war against ISIS, and forged a new relationship with the central government in Syria. Moreover, the collapse of central authority allowed the Kurds to control Syria’s oil reserves in the northeast, providing financial resources to support autonomy.
The fact that Turkey has to some extent tolerated the existence of an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq does not mean that it will agree to the existence of such a region in Syria. An autonomous Kurdish region seems to stand in complete contrast to Turkey’s political strategy for the post- 2024 new Syria.
Conclusion
The civil war in Syria may be the bloodiest conflict the Middle East has known in the twentieth century. It resulted in nearly half a million dead, about six million refugees and seven million internally displaced, a shredded social fabric, a collapsed infrastructure and a debilitated economy.
The Ba’ath regime never backed a political hegemony of minorities over the Sunni majority, yet the regime’s adherence to the secular Ba’athist ideology provided a certain degree of security for minority communities. Concerns with the new regime among Syria’s minorities have only grown, especially after the recent massacres of Alawites in the coastal region. Modern Syria has always relied on the integration of minority communities into the public and political spheres, where minorities have played an outsized role. But it is now uncertain whether this new regime guarantees a continuation of this policy.
In light of all this, some analysts doubt whether it will be possible to revive Syria as a unitary state. Perhaps the country’s most optimistic scenario involves some form of federal government, with autonomy for the three regional minorities and a central state under the patronage of Turkey.
