Following The Attacks On The Druze In Syria, Kurdish Columnist Writes On Saudi News Website: The Kurds Are Also In The Crosshairs Of The Terrorist Al-Sharaa Regime, Which Is Supported By Turkey; Askin

Memri

5 days ago

Following the violent clashes in the Druze stronghold of Al-Suwayda in southern Syria between Druze factions and Beduine tribes backed by the forces of the Al-Sharaa regime – clashes that included acts of massacre against the Druze – the Saudi news website Elaph posted two articles by Kurdish journalist Mahmoud Abbas that slammed the Al-Sharaa regime for its treatment of the minorities in Syria. In the first article, posted on July 18, 2025, Abbas wrote that Al-Sharaa's regime, backed by Turkey, is even worse than the Assad regime since it not only persecutes political opponents but also directs accusations of heresy and treason, as well as racist hatred, against various sectors of Syrian society, such as the Alawites, Druze, Kurds, Christians and Yazidis, and subjects them to a policy of political exclusion.
Abbas warned that "yesterday's murderers," namely the militias backed by the Al-Sharaa regime that massacred the Alawites and Druze, are already preparing to confront their next target – the Kurds – and that Syria is rapidly sliding into a new civil war, more brutal than the previous one. The only solution, he argued, is to reshape Syria as a decentralized federation that will ensure the rights of all its citizens and stop the bloodshed.
In another article posted the following day, Abbas expressed explicit support for Druze leader Hikmat Al-Hijri's appeal to Israel for help, and rejected the criticism he had incurred for this.[1] Asking Israel for assistance, Abbas said, is not treason but rather an expression of patriotism in its true sense, of defending human dignity. He noted that Assad's former opponents, who are today part of the Al-Sharaa regime, received aid from Turkey and Qatar and were not considered traitors, yet today they hypocritically direct this accusation at those who are hoping for Israeli help. Stating that Israel, despite its reputation, is better than all Middle East regimes in its treatment of minorities, he added that the most virulent hostility in the region is not directed at Israel but rather at 'anything that is not Arab or Muslim' and sometimes even at fellow Muslims.
It should be noted that both these articles by Abbas were later removed from the Elaph website. This is despite the fact that the site was established in London in order to avoid the censorship imposed in Saudi Arabia and give voice to liberal views, especially those opposing religious extremism.
The following are translated excerpts from Kurdish journalist Mahmoud Abbas's articles:
Turkey, The Patron Of The Al-Sharaa Regime, Regards All Of Syria's Minorities As Terrorists; The Syrian Kurds Are Next In Line For Violent Attacks
In his July 18, 2025 article, Abbas wrote: "…[Syria's] former regime scorned the concepts of society and homeland, and sold [its] values in exchange for mass graves. Now Al-Joulani's government has emerged from the womb of the same turgid swamp to peddle [the slogan of] 'the single homeland' while scorning [various] values and sectors and [wearing] an extremist Sunni-Umayyad guise. They have expanded the circle of takfir [accusing others of heresy], so that it is no longer limited to any [particular] political or national [sector] but now also includes [entire] streams and religions, and anyone who is different from them faces various accusations, [such as] 'traitor,' 'infidel' and 'agent'.
"Now they are working to sew together the torn body of the homeland, after they severed the Alawite, Druze and Kurdish regions from the national fold, eliminated the Christian, Alawite and Druze elements from [Syria's] religious reality, and [removed] the Yazidis from the spiritual map and others from the mosaic of Syrian society. [These] elements are eliminated through explicit accusation of heresy, reprehensible racism or political exclusion.
"Al-Joulani – a man of many faces – wears ties in the halls of diplomacy… and a turban in the extremist councils. He deals with organizations that harm Syria's territorial [integrity], knowing that it cannot withstand being torn apart in this manner. Al-Joulani is absent from the streets of the Syrian coast and is forgotten in the alleys of Al-Suwayda, but he is forced to be present, if only formally, in the halls of dialogue with the Kurdish movement and the [Democratic] Autonomous Administration [of North and East Syria].[2]
"Syria cannot survive without the Druze and the Alawites, and it will collapse if the Kurdish people and national movement are denied representation. It will not be a state that serves its people by means of a central government that imposes itself by force and though accusations of heresy. The provinces have become [nothing but] meaningless names, and those who purport to represent the 'Syrian interim government' in them have [actually] been sent to destroy what remains of the homeland, including all of its areas and components.
"They executed the Alawites and now they are starting to execute the Druze… and accuse them of treason and heresy, just as was previously done to the Yazidis and the Christians, whose women were abducted and men were arrested [on false charges]... Anyone who rejects the black [jihadi] flag and the banner of the false caliphate, has become a target for terror groups that continue to harm Syria under distorted slogans.
"…Yesterday's murderers, who massacred Yazidis and abducted Christians, are now reinventing themselves and laying the groundwork for a struggle against the Kurds, using the same ugly pretexts they used to frame the Alawites and the Druze. And every time the truth is exposed, they deny involvement [in the violence] and blame 'criminal' groups that disobey the government.
"What is now happening in Al-Suwayda is a blood-soaked message to the [Kurdish-led] Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF], the Autonomous Administration and the Kurdish people in general, that the trust [they placed in the new Syrian government] was delusional… We charge the SDF to defend the communities east of the Euphrates [i.e., in northeastern Syria] and in the Kurdish region, from Afrin… to the sources of the Euphrates in Iraq – for they are all in danger: the Kurds, the Arab tribes, the Assyrians and the Yazidis. They are all accused of collaborating with America and with the forces of the [international] coalition. They are all terrorists in the eyes of Turkey, the patron of the [Syrian] interim government and its apparatuses, which feeds them ideas and inspires their projects of exclusion. The conflict is therefore not only with the Kurds, but with all that remains of a homeland that has not yet succumbed to the [forces of] evil.
"From now on there is no more room for dialogue, because Syria, exhausted to begin with, is rapidly sliding into a new civil war, crueler and more horrific than everything that preceded it, [and will continue to slide] as long as this takfiri and terrorist regime remains in control of the country… What we see in the footage coming out of Al-Suwayda, and what happened before this in Latakia and Tartous, are but early signs of a black storm that has appeared on the horizon and threatens the slivers that still remain of the homeland.
"The only way out of this hell is to fully recognize that Syria can only be rebuilt on a decentralized federative basis that will ensure [human] rights and stop the ever-recurring bloodshed.
"It is almost impossible to imagine a homeland existing under the control of takfiri groups mired in terrorism, ignorance and crime. Such [forces] cannot build a homeland, but only cemeteries, a history written in blood and an ideology that negates the human in the name of Allah.
"Syria, which gave birth to the greatest philosophers, poets and thinkers, is too pure and lofty to let these benighted and ignorant [forces], bereft of intelligence and values, contaminate its soil."
Everyone Relies On Outside Help, Such As Turkey's And Qatar's; The Druze Leader's Appeal To Israel Is Not Treason
In another article published one day later, on July 19, Abbas expressed support for Hikmat Al-Hijri's move of appealing to Israel for help and rejected the criticism that had been directed at him for this. He wrote: "When an honorable sheikh from the Druze Mountains – [the region] whose name has been changed to the Arab Mountains out of respect for Arabhood and the homeland – cries out and asks his fellow Druze in Israel to help him repel tribal attacks… he is not overstepping the boundaries of patriotism. [On the contrary], he is only restoring [patriotism] to its primary meaning: of defending honor before defending slogans, and of defending people before defending land. For the homeland is not a rag that is waved over the ruins of [our] values. It is a moral contract that has no meaning if honor is buried beneath it.
"After all, what is the difference, or the moral discrepancy, between what the opposition government [in the time of the Assad regime] did when it solicited the help of Turkey, which is one of the most bitter enemies of the components of Syrian [society], or the help of Qatar or of [other] Arab countries…? The factions that made up the Syrian National Army, [comprising pro-Turkish groups] – were they not the product of Turkish and Qatari political capital? Is it not true that some of them were nurtured in the bosom of intelligence agencies and coalesced over the ruins [caused by] regional chaos, just as the militias of the criminal [Assad] regime emerged under Iranian sponsorship and with direct Russian support?
"This is the skewered Syrian logic: everyone uses the help of external forces, and everyone accuses everyone of treason. The land is the one that bleeds and the people are the ones who pay the price as they die or are scattered [around the globe], in the complete absence of trust between the components [of society] and amid a rapid decline into division and the reemergence of tyranny with a new face.
"How terrible it is that 'Israel' has become such a hangup in the crisis-ridden Arab-Islamic consciousness, which has lost its powers of discernment to the extent that it sees anything coming out of [Israel] as aggression – even [when Israel hands] a glass of water to a wounded child or comes to the defense of a sect that is being exterminated. The Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham movement has forgotten that wounded [fighters] of the Syrian opposition, including [members of the HTS] organization, which formed Syria's [current] interim government, received treatment in Israeli hospitals.
"Who instilled this culture of blind hostility and violated the scriptures of the three monotheistic faiths, which [all] preach acceptance of the other? How did appeals for Israeli help become treason, while appeals for the help of the Turkish occupier or the Iranian militias, or [requests for] Gulf capital, are considered a blessed national partnership?...
"And to remove any doubt, [let me say that], in terms of democratic structure and minority rights, Israel, despite everything that is said [about it], is better than all the Middle Eastern regimes when it comes to the treatment of the Druze, of its Palestinian citizens and of the Syrians living on its soil. Do the Kurds in Syria or Turkey enjoy [the rights] that the Druze and Arabs living in Israel enjoy? Does reality not merit some objectiveness, instead of canned curses?
"The hostility that is really destroying the peoples of the region is not the hostility directed at Israel, as is commonly believed. It stems from a distorted culture that deeply permeates [our] collective consciousness and perpetuates hatred for anything that is not Arab or Muslim. Moreover, we find this burgeoning [hatred] even within Islam, between Sunnis and Shiites, and, worst of all, between different Sunni streams, whose hatred for each other is no less than [their hatred] towards Jews or Israel…
"Those who accused Sheikh Al-Hijri of treason should look at their own treason. Perhaps they will see their true faces in the mirror. For treason is not asking your community members in Israel to help you repel the danger of tribal invasions led by [organizations] like ISIS with new names, [organizations] that are supported by the remnants of Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham, which forms the foundation of Syria's interim government. Treason is asking ten Arab countries, led by Turkey, to launch an offensive against a component of the Syrian nation whose battles and sacrifices prove its loyalty to the [Syrian] soil and people. Treason is not a desperate cry for help aimed at keeping your women from being abducted and your children from being massacred. It is when you sell out your national decision-making to advance an extremist takfiri component [of society] at the expense of Syria's national components, and when you raise the banners of sectarianism over the ruins of the state and reach out to those who have betrayed every revolution and committed every crime."