Syria’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Osama al-Rifai has called for calm after days of protests demanding the prosecution of supporters of the former regime, warning citizens against “undisciplined actions that could open the door to strife,” the official Syrian news agency SANA reported.
Rifai said Friday that accountability for criminals must be left to the state and its relevant agencies. He said demands for justice and for holding those involved in violations to account were “a legitimate right,” but must be pursued through the state and the law, not through unorganized individual or collective action.
“What the Syrian people endured over 60 years of injustice and suffering because of the practices of the defunct regime and its loyalists requires wise conduct today, far from strife,” SANA quoted him as saying.
He said the responsibility for applying the law and holding suspects accountable rests with the relevant state institutions, urging people to trust judicial and official procedures rather than resorting to individual acts that could have dangerous repercussions for social security.
AFP reported that dozens of Syrians joined a protest overnight Tuesday into Wednesday in which shops and cars were vandalized in a Damascus neighborhood. Protesters demanded that loyalists of the former rule be held to account, part of wider mobilizations that began in several areas and prompted the authorities to warn against turning to “revenge.”
Neighborhoods seen as supportive of the former regime in several areas, including Aleppo and Idlib, have seen similar protests in recent days. Demonstrators called for the trial of those they described as “shabiha” and “remnants of the regime,” terms used for loyalists of the ousted president, Bashar al-Assad.
Residents said the protests included attacks on private property, fueling tensions and fears of acts outside the law as the authorities work to launch a transitional justice process after years of war, AFP reported.
Videos on social media showed dozens of people moving through the Mezzeh 86 neighborhood, which had a mostly Alawite population. Shops and cars were attacked and chants were directed against residents.
A similar demonstration took place outside the nearby Great Mezzeh Mosque, demanding the expulsion of “shabiha,” before security forces deployed to control the situation and asked residents to stay in their homes.
The Ash al-Warwar neighborhood on the outskirts of Damascus, which also has a mostly Alawite population, saw a similar protest on Monday night, an AFP photographer reported.
Leaflets have spread in several provinces in recent days, giving loyalists of the former rule the choice between leaving the country or staying in their homes “awaiting accountability.”
The first such protest began last week in Kafr Aweed in rural Idlib, in the northwest of the country.
The protests came despite the authorities starting trials of former security and military officials from the previous rule, and announcing the arrest of about 6,000 people, including soldiers, officers and loyalists linked to the former rule. The authorities are trying to contain the protests, which have raised concerns among rights advocates.
Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said last week, while receiving a delegation from Damascus, that “it is important that transitional justice not be used as a pretext for revenge or as a tool for domination,” warning that otherwise “we would be confronting one injustice with another.”
Arrests over the 2020 strike on Jabal al-Duwaila camp
In a related development, SANA said internal security units in Idlib province arrested Issa Ghannam and Fadi Maarouf on suspicion of leaking the coordinates of an opposition camp in Jabal al-Duwaila in the city of Kafr Takharim, Idlib province, in 2020.
The agency quoted the Interior Ministry as saying investigations showed that “Fadi Maarouf, known as Abu Jahl, sent the site’s coordinates to Issa Ghannam, who in turn transferred them to Brigadier General Abdulrahman Najm, head of the State Security branch under the defunct regime. The camp was then hit by direct air strikes during a meeting of its members, causing more than 100 deaths and injuries.”
The Interior Ministry statement did not say which faction the targeted camp belonged to or who carried out the strike.
Reports at the time said Russian warplanes bombed a parade by fighters at a Faylaq al-Sham camp, affiliated with the National Front for Liberation, in al-Duwaila in the Kafr Takharim area near the Turkish border, on Oct. 26, 2020, causing dozens of deaths and injuries.
