In recent days, heartbreaking reports have emerged from Syria: brutal murders on innocent citizens-a lot of the Christian and Druze communities of minorities-to-have reported by troops in line with the Islamist regime of the country, now led by interim-president Ahmed al-Shammed, rather known, nom-guerre, nom-nom-“nom-shamed,” nom-shaamed, “nom-shamed,” nom-shamed, “nom-shamed,” nom-shamed, “nom-shamed,” nom-shamed, “nom-shhara. The fbi’s fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” long on the fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” long on the fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” long on the fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” long on the fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” long on the fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” in the fbi’s “long on the fbi’s” in the fbi’s “for the fbi’s” for the fbi’s “for the fbi’s” for the fbi’s “Long on the fbi’s” for the fbi’s “Long on the fbi’s” for the fbi’s “Long on the fbi’s” 4444444 Regional terror groups.
Take it from this Muslim: Peace depends on the total defeat of the Islamist death cult
Like a Syrian-American, my heart hurts what has become of my ancestral home country. As a doctor I cannot detach myself from the human suffering behind every head. And if someone who has warned for decades for the rising threat of Islamism, I sound alarm: a new tyranny shoots root in Syria, dressed in religious language, but just as dangerous and destructive as the previous one. The importance of exposing, understanding and confronting early bending points in Syria against another tyranny after more than 55 years of Ba’athist military dictatorship cannot be overestimated.
Syrian citizens and security forces inspect the damage in Mar Elias Church, where a suicide bonus exploded in Dewil’a in the edge of Damascus, Syria, Sunday 22 June 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)
The world is tragically used to Syrian suffering. Since the Assad regime started his terror campaign in 2011, against the long-awaited revolution of anti-government protests, the country has become synonymous with war, relocation and loss. More than half a million people have been killed. More than 13 million have been displaced. Cities, such as my ancestral birthplace Aleppo, have been reduced to debris. And yet, from the axis of the Bashar al-Assad family, a new authoritarianism has come up, this time not driven by secular fascism, but by religious supremacism.
Who are the Druze? Religious Group helps Syrian members under Islamic attack, Israeli members offer support
The reports that we now receive indicate sectarian violence aimed at the religious minorities of Syria, in particular Christians and the Druze. These are communities that have existed in Syria for centuries, long before the rise of Islam, and that have endured waves of persecution. Now they are again the target, this time by groups that are sympathetic to the new regime whose leaders adhere to an Islamist interpretation of Sunni Islam, and that theological difference do not regard as a reality of pluralism but as a crime that is worth death.
This is not Islam. This is Islamism.
Islamism is a teaching interpretation that promotes a rigid, theocratic vision of Islam as a political system. It aims to implement Sharia or Islamic law, not only as a personal or spiritual guide, but as the government authority over every aspect of the public and private life. Islamists see the rights of citizens who do not come from God, but from their theocratic version of Islam. Islamists believe that their political power is divine and deviating opinions is heretics and treacherous. This is not faith. It is fascism wrapped in the language of God.
Israel acts in defense of the Druze -lessness in southern Syria, which was recently involved in violent collisions. (Reuters)
For years, Islamists have wrongly presented themselves as the antidote for the tyranny of Assad. They told the world that they are fighting for freedom, justice and democracy. But let’s be clear: the Islamists who are now in power do not differ from Assad. Their language and methods can vary, but their goals are the same: absolute control, achieved through fear, violence and repression.
Where the Assads used torture rooms and chemical weapons, Islamists use a cult-like religious identity and both sword and shield. Where the Assads sowed sectarianism to crush the different opinion in the name of the National Unit, the Islamists now do the same in the name of their version of ‘Divine Truth’.
And the result is the same: bodies on the street, families torn apart and the suffocation of every future for freedom.
The core of this struggle is a principle that we are dear to in America – but that is increasingly threatened all over the world: religious freedom. It is not just one right among many. It is the basis of everyone else. As I have often said: religious freedom is the tip of the spear of all liberties. It is the ‘first freedom’. When it blooms, society blooms. When it is crushed, all other freedoms fall.
This is not an abstract philosophy. This is the lived reality of millions. When people are denied freedom to worship and believe – or not to believe – according to their conscience, it is only a matter of time before they are also denied freedom to speak, to collect, to vote, live without fear. Syria is a tragic case study in what happens when religious freedom is replaced by ideological authoritarianism, or secular or theocratic.
By the Clarity CoalitionWe are committed to shed light on the threats of both political Islam and authoritarian regimes. We are a network of Muslims, ex-Muslims and allies from the very ideological spectrum who believe that freedom is not only a Western value. It is a human. We believe in the dignity of every person, the equality of all before the law and the essential truth that no government has the right to tell you what you should believe.
We call on the international community not only to condemn the newest atrocities in Syria, but also to act. That means that the investigation of today is reported. It means that the government in Damascus is held responsible and demanding transparency in how their emerging government protects every minority and every citizen.
It means that recognition and support of each regime that is such crimes means that commits or makes it possible. It means recognizing Islamism as the dangerous political ideology it is, not a legitimate expression of religious faith, but an extremist perversion.
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In 2013, the Obama government made it possible, ratified and celebrated the “Democratically” chosen Islamist regime of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which laid the foundation for the return of another military regime in the current leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The in -depth religious diversity of Syria can be a stronghold against these dual fascisms and Game of Thrones.
But this means standing with the Syrian people: Christians, Druze, Sunnis, Shi’a, Alawwites, Kurds, atheists, anyone who longing for a Syria where they can live in peace can worship freely, have their minds without fear.
President Donald Trump should immediately ask for a full responsibility and transparency of Damascus about the treatment of minorities of Sharaa and his direct responsibility for the freedom of religious minorities under his rule.
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The Syrian people deserve better than a choice between Assad and Al-Golani. They do not deserve a future in sectarianism and violence, but in freedom and dignity.
The world ignored Syria once before and the prize was terrible. We can’t afford to ignore it again.
