What to Know About Syria’s Druse, Alawites and Kurds as Sectarian Violence Rises

The rebels who overthrew the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December have vowed to unify their country. But persistent outbreaks of sectarian violence have stoked fears among Syria’s many minority groups that the country’s new government, which mostly belongs to the Sunni Arab majority, will not or cannot protect them from extremist groups in Syria.

Dozens of people were killed in late April when Islamist fighters attacked neighborhoods around Damascus, the capital, which are home to many in the country’s Druse minority. On Wednesday, Israel launched airstrikes and threatened to strike Syrian government forces in defense of the Druse.

The attacks came two months after thousands of extremist fighters killed around 1,600 people mostly from the country’s Alawite minority on the Syrian coast, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war-monitoring group based in Britain.

Some of those fighters appeared to be among the more extremist factions of the rebel coalition that toppled the Assad regime, according to war monitors. Despite the new authorities’ promises to integrate all rebel factions into a new national army, many of the more extremist armed groups remain outside the government’s control.

Several prominent Syrian minorities — including the Druse, the Alawites and the Kurds — have also formed armed groups of their own. Both the Druse and the Kurds established militias during the country’s nearly-14-year civil war and have not laid down their arms since the war ended. Some Alawite former members of the Assad regime have also taken up arms against the new government.

Here’s what to know about Syria’s diverse minority communities.

Druse