Below, however, are
some developments that occurred from the moment the jihadists took over
to just the end of December, 2024 (three weeks) which suggest otherwise:
For starters, and as if they could not contain their “enthusiasm,”
one of the very first things the jihadists did is drive around Damascus
while brandishing disturbing messages on their vehicles, including “Your Time Has Come, worshippers of the Cross.”
Even in the days before Damascus fell, its aspiring jihadist rulers were reported
as looking to find and behead the leader of the largest Christian
community in Syria, Metropolitan Ephraim of the Antiochian Orthodox
Church. In response, the metropolitan tried to comfort the nation’s Christians in a sermon:
[O]ur beloved children in Aleppo, we remain here, in
Aleppo, with our flock in all circumstance—from the most difficult to
the most joyful. This is our pastoral ministry, and we will steadfastly
continue to fulfill it… We assure you that prayers in our churches will
continue as circumstances and available means allow. In prayer, dear
ones, we cast our burdens upon God and trust in Him. Therefore, I urge
you: pray without ceasing! Let us patiently follow Christ’s path to the
cross, until we rise with Him in His Resurrection!
The report
adds, that, “Metropolitan Ephraim assumed leadership of the Aleppo
Metropolis on December 17, 2021, following the kidnapping and martyrdom
of his predecessor, Metropolitan Paul (Yazigi), who was murdered by Islamists in 2016.”
On Dec. 10, “Jihadist rebels looted
the treasury and donation box of St. George’s Syriac Orthodox Church in
Damascus, disrupting religious services and preventing the Mass from
being held. The priest was ordered to leave the premises.”
On Dec. 11, a Christian priest reported
that Muslims attacked the farmers of a Christian village of Homs: “The
Christians were ridiculed and beaten for being ‘infidels.’”
On Dec. 13, a Christian couple, Samaan Satme and Helena Khashouf, of the village al-Jamasliyye in Homs province, were brutally murdered inside their home. According to one report,
“Although the murder was initially reported as a burglary gone wrong,
it later emerged that Samaan was beheaded and Helena shot, indicating
that there were other motives.”
Suggesting that the murder comes in the wake of uncorked jihadist hostility against the nation’s Christians, the report
adds that, around the same time of this double homicide, a Christian
man and his mother, living in Latakia, were attacked by their longtime
Muslim neighbors, upon the jihadist rebels’ arrival: “You’re
Christians,” they were disparagingly told, “leave the house, we don’t
want you here!”
On Dec. 18, the jihadists opened fire
on the Greek Orthodox cathedral of Hama. The gunmen, using automatic
weapons, shot up the walls of the church and tried to demolish the
building’s cross.
That same day, the jihadists also “violated the sanctity of the dead”
and “vandalized the cemeteries of Christian families” in Mhardeh, north
of Hama, said a local source. Pictures of desecration (here) show a beheaded Virgin Mary statue and several smashed crosses and tombstones scattered on the ground.
On Dec. 11, jihadists destroyed and vandalized
the contents of the St. Sophia church in Suqaylabiyah, another
predominantly Christian town, also in Hama province (video footage here).
Nearly two weeks later, and just a couple of days before Christmas, eight foreign jihadists, of Uzbek origin, set fire to a large public Christmas tree in Suqaylabiyah (image here). According to one report, “the perpetrators kept observers and firefighters at bay while the stories-high artificial tree burned in the main square.”
This act of arson, along with the ongoing “series
of thefts, desecrations of churches, and anti-Christian provocations by
jihadists from the Russian Caucasus and Central Asia,” prompted
protests from the region’s indigenous Christians. While shouting
“enough is enough!,” protestors marched through their village carrying a
large cross, “to show the jihadists that they are Christians and not afraid.”
Discussing all these flagrant attacks, one report observes that,
Despite the declarations of tolerance and inclusion by
the new government in Syria, this attack on Christian sites is not the
last, because jihadists continue to act and have fought for the new
Syrian government. In particular, some, who are as close as two peas in a
pod to the Islamic State, with the same patches on their combat
uniforms. Although Christmas for Catholics has been declared a holiday
for civil servants, nothing changes the fact that in Syria the Islamist
armed gangs, including the most radical ones, have total freedom.
Even Ahmed al-Sharaa, jihadist warlord and current leader of Syria, confessed in a Dec. 17 interview
that, “When we build the Islamic caliphate, Christians will pay Jizya
under Islamic Sharia.” The word jizya, which is often translated as
“tribute” or “tax,” comes from Koran 9: 29:
Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and
Jews] who do not believe in Allah, nor the Last Day, nor forbid what
Allah and his Messenger have forbidden, nor embrace the religion of
truth [Islam], until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel
themselves humbled.
As should be evident from that verse, jizya is not limited to
monetary tribute from “infidels,” but is also a reflection and reminder
of their inferior status—one of submission and humility—within an
Islamic state, which Syria has become.
Despite all this, and as usual, when it comes to what is in store for
Syria, wishful thinking seems to be supplanting reality. Although
everything about Ahmed al-Sharaa and his jihadist cohorts screams
“radicalization,” “Islamic terrorism” and “ISIS,” of late, the jihadist
warlord has been making public appearances in Western attire—suit and
tie—and has been speaking like a Western diplomat, stressing “inclusion”
for religious minorities (aka, infidels, contemptible kuffar, in his mind) and promising “a new era far removed from sectarianism.”
And in our world of make believe, that tends to be all that is needed
for reassurance—even as the hate and violence simmers beneath the
veneer and seeps out unchecked.
