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Alawites [b] are an Arab ethnoreligious group [17] who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism. [18] A sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ghulat branch during the ninth century, [19] [20] [21] Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, the "first Imam" in the Twelver school, as a manifestation of the divine essence.
The Assad regime had attempted to supplant the Alawite religious identity. Bashar al-Assad attempted to integrate Alawites into Sunni Islam as to alleviate Sunni opposition to his rule, while Hafez al-Assad entirely dismissed the Alawite faith as simply Twelver Shi'ism. Alawites insisted that they were a distinct Islamic sect, while accusing ...
Bashar al-Assad's strategy of importing Iran-backed Shia fundamentalists engaged in regional conflict with Sunni-majority countries and his portrayal as being the sole defender of Alawite interests from the Syrian Sunni majority; led to the transformation of the conflict into a sectarian war by late 2013. [12]
In the final days leading to his ouster, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad complained to Iran's foreign minister that Turkey was actively supporting Sunni rebels in their offensive to topple him ...
The conflict's sectarian edge was hardened by the arrival of Iranian-backed Shi'ite fighters from across the Middle East to support Assad, and as Sunni Muslim-led states including Turkey and Qatar ...
Assad became president in 2000 after his father Hafez died, preserving the family's iron-fisted rule and the dominance of their Alawite sect in the Sunni Muslim-majority country and Syria's status ...
Islam is the most practiced religion in Turkey. Most Turkish Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the later half of the 11th century, when the Seljuks started expanding into eastern Anatolia. [2]
The Consultative Gathering, a group of Shia and Sunni leaders in Baalbek-Hermel, also called on Hezbollah not to "interfere" in Syria. They said, "Opening a front against the Syrian people and dragging Lebanon to war with the Syrian people is very dangerous and will have a negative impact on the relations between the two."