| I agree with the other commenter; I don't believe this language, which seems to be directed towards western audiences for self-serving reasons. - "He also mentioned that al-Nusra would not target the country's Alawite minority, despite their support for the Assad regime" In the past, al-Julani (or al-Golani) has explicitly demanded Alawites convert to Sunni Islam, - "But any Allawite considering taking advantage of Golami’s kind offer must meet certain conditions. They must not only stop supporting Assad, but they must convert to Nusra’s brand of extreme Sunni Islam or, in other words, stop being Allawites. Christians will be given a grace period before they have to start pay jizya, a special tax, and Golani takes for granted that Sharia will be implemented. “The basics remain the same,” says Lund, “and they’re extreme enough to be borderline genocidal even when sugar-coated by Al Jazeera.”" https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/syrian-civ... (2015) And the surrounding context of that quote is apropos, too: "They had earlier forcibly converted hundreds of Druze to their fundamentalist variant of Sunni Islam." These people have no intention of coexisting with different religious groups—they intend to violently convert them, and eradicate their religions. |
Maybe they're naive, but here are Syiran Christians celebrating: https://x.com/GrecoLevantines/status/1865621018531840273