Statement by Bronx Antiwar Coalition, March 7, 2025
Despite relentless attempts by “Free Syria” influencers to obscure the brutal reality on the ground, incontrovertible evidence from the past 24 hours confirms that Jolani’s HTS regime—installed and maintained with the backing of the US, the Zionist Entity, and Turkey—has escalated its reign of terror along Syria’s strategic coast. Videos circulating online graphically document HTS operatives publicly executing unarmed civilians—elderly men, children, and women—whose bodies are dragged through the streets in scenes reminiscent of Sabra and Shatila. These recordings are a deliberate, chilling warning that any sign of dissent or protest will be met with public executions and massacres, echoing the terror tactics of the Zionist Entity.
Eyewitness accounts reveal that earlier today, HTS deployed unguided barrel bombs and a Shaheen drone to strike at Alawite community defenders—unarmed Syrians targeted solely for their ethnic identity—while sparing entrenched military forces such as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), whose bases continue to expand across Syrian territory. In another brutal act, HTS forces executed four female university students in Tartous and Latakia. In retaliation for losing direct confrontations against the organized, armed Syrian Resistance, HTS has again resorted to attacking unarmed civilians as punitive retribution—mirroring the barbarity of the Zionist Entity in Palestine and Lebanon. Additional reports document that at least 80 civilians—including children—were slaughtered, their deaths deployed not only to cover the regime’s mounting military failures but also to appease its sectarian supporters.
Imperialists and their vassals—including the US, the Zionist Entity, Turkey, the UK, Qatar, Saudi Arabia—engineered a 15‑year regime‐change war that installed Jolani’s terrorist regime. Operational since the December 2024 coup, the HTS junta employs radical Takfiri ideology—a curse of sectarianism that brands entire communities as apostates—to systematically divide Syria along sectarian lines. Coupled with ideological support from Wahhabism and official endorsements from the US Congress and the UK government, HTS was installed by the West to balkanize Syria into weak, defenseless statelets that will pose no threat to the Zionist entity’s expansionist project in the region.
Until people begin to understand the fall of Syria as a war on a sovereign and independent state—that it was never solely about “Assad” but part of a broader campaign against Palestine, Lebanon, and the entire resistance in the region—they will remain lost, confused, and unwittingly contribute propaganda that aids the very imperialist forces they claim to oppose.
After suffering significant losses at the hands of the determined, multi-ethnic Syrian Resistance, HTS again targeted unarmed civilians as a means of retribution. The terror HTS inflicts on civilians further exposes its failure on the battlefield and echoes the ruthless methods employed by the Zionist Entity in its brutal genocidal campaigns in Palestine and Lebanon.
In response to these state-sanctioned massacres, an empowered, multi-ethnic Syrian Resistance—organized under the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria—rises to reclaim the dignity of the Syrian people. In a series of coordinated operations along the Syrian coast, resistance fighters have:
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Ambushed HTS Convoys and Severed Critical Supply Lines: Leaving enemy formations disoriented and unable to sustain their terror infrastructure.
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Captured Strategic Military Sites: Including the Astamu airbase, Nabi Yunus Peak, and key positions at the Naval College—striking deep at HTS’s operational backbone.
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Inflicted Devastating Losses on HTS Forces: Neutralizing over 52 enemy mercenaries and inflicting heavy casualties on HTS shock troops, severely undermining their capacity for further violence.
This resolute response is driven by widespread outrage over months of deliberate sectarian massacres against Alawite and Shi’a civilians. Propaganda falsely labels this determined resistance as “pro‑Assad,” yet its sole aim is to fight Takfiri terrorism, Zionist expansionism, and the systematic oppression of the Syrian people.
HTS’ on-camera atrocities unmask a systematic campaign of terror designed to intimidate unarmed civilians, conceal battlefield defeats, and prop up its sectarian agenda. Meanwhile, influential media outlets and prominent “Free Syria” activists—such as Al-Jazeera, Dilly Hussein, and Omar Suleiman—persist in whitewashing and defending these crimes. Their false narratives and selective silence not only disguise HTS’ massacres but also serve the imperialist projects that seek to fracture Syria along Takfiri-Wahhabi-manufactured sectarian lines.
A profound hypocrisy underpins this entire crisis. HTS reserves its advanced drone strikes and other lethal military hardware exclusively for targeting defenseless minority communities while purposefully avoiding direct engagement with forces such as Turkey, the US, or the Israeli Occupation Forces. In doing so, Jolani’s regime exposes a grim moral equivalence between its terror tactics and those of its Zionist backers—both employing public executions and indiscriminate violence to further their imperialist designs.
The Bronx Anti-War Coalition urgently calls upon students, independent journalists, human rights advocates, and the international community to:
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Expose HTS’s Public Executions: Unmask the systematic use of military hardware and drones against unarmed civilians.
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Acknowledge the Deliberate Targeting of Civilian Populations: Recognize that hundreds of lives have been lost and entire communities shattered by these state-sanctioned massacres.
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Reject Hypocritical Geopolitical Maneuvering: Denounce the expansion of Israeli occupation forces and the false facade of “free Syria” that serve to provide cover for these ongoing atrocities.
We insist on accountability for both the perpetrators on the ground and the media propagandists who whitewash these crimes. The fate of Syria—its territorial sovereignty, the integrity of its diverse society, and the dignity of its people—depends on a unified, informed resistance against state-sponsored terrorism and the propaganda that normalizes it.
Expose the lies. Demand accountability. End the massacres. Support the Syrian Resistance.