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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 ...
[268] [269] [270] Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated in an interview after the fall of the Assad regime that Turkey cooperated with HTS during his time as the head of the Turkish intelligence agency MIT and that HTS provided Turkey with information on many members of ISIS and Al Qaeda, including high-ranking officials. [271] [272]
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 ...
Although the country of Jordan is 95% Sunni and has not seen any Shia–Sunni fighting within, it has played a part in the recent Shia-Sunni strife. It is the home country of anti-Shia insurgent Raed Mansour al-Banna, who died perpetrating one of Iraq's worst suicide bombings in the city of Al-Hillah.
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]
President for 24 years, Assad flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination early on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters. Rebels declared the city "free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad".
On the other hand, Al-Assad "declared the Alawites to be nothing but Twelver Shiites". [122] In a paper, "Islamic Education in Syria", Landis wrote that "no mention" is made in Syrian textbooks (controlled by the Al-Assad regime) of Alawites, Druze, Ismailis or Shia Islam; Islam was presented as a monolithic religion. [123]