It’s now day 3 of horrific videos of slaughter coming out of Syria.

Is this just rogue elements of the security forces carrying out the killings or does the actual current government have far more direct culpability in the atrocities?

I posed this question to our contacts in Syria and here is what I pieced together:

This is a bit complicated. Jolani said that all factions of HTS has been dissolved and integrated into an army under the new Syrian Ministry of Defense. However, this doesn’t actually reflect reality. To understand this, it is important to understand the structure of HTS.

HTS is not a single body. It is a coalition of several factions, all Islamists with different sub-ideologies. Some are more extremist than others. Each faction has its own prince (leader) and the fighters owe loyalty only to their prince. This is why many of them used to say that they don't care what Jolani says, that they only take order from their leaders (princes).

So it’s actually more decentralized, and it’s certainly not monolithic.

Now knowing this as the President of Syria, Jolani called for all factions to go to the coastal towns where the Alawites live. Why?

He knows they are extremists, entering an area where they consider the population as infidels, where violence is religiously ordered by Ibn Taymiyya - one of the most influential Sheikhs in Islam. His books are very widespread and his followers are plenty.

He considers the Alawites and Druze more evil than Jews and therefore killing them is a priority over killing Jews.

We can’t know if Jolani intentionally wanted to kill minority members. But he should be well aware of the extremist beliefs in the ranks of the army he leads, and that influential religious leaders continue to peddle prejudice against the Alawites. So even if this wasn’t his intention, he carries the responsibility as the self-appointed de facto president of Syria.

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