Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanded that authorities hold Syria accountable after radical Islamist terrorists massacred civilians.
“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” Rubio said in a statement. “The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
The regime of Syria’s former leader, Bashar al-Assad, toppled in December. The new leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, was the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an organization linked to al-Qaeda.
Syria’s government claimed the recent killings were due to clashes with Assad loyalists, according to reports.
According to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), 973 civilians have been killed. The organization described the massacre as “part of the unprecedented escalation of retaliatory actions and genocide which started on March 7 in four Syrian provinces.”
“The bloody actions, which are still ongoing, coincide with setting fire to civilian houses and forcible displacements, while no international authorities have interfered or taken any actions so far to put an end to those massacres,” the group wrote.
Since March 6, 1,454 people have been killed, SOHR reported.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on social media that al-Julani “took off his galabiya, put on a suit, and presented a moderate facade. Now, he has removed the mask, revealing his true face: a jihadist terrorist from the Al-Qaeda school, committing atrocities against the Alawite civilian population.”
