The militants who topped the regime of dictator Bashar Assad in Syria are “al-Qaeda and ISIS hiding who they really are” and their rule “will be a disaster for Christians,” predicted Jeff King, the president of International Christian Concern (ICC), in remarks to Breitbart News on Tuesday.
ICC is a global charity working to offer humanitarian aid and advocate for the rights of persecuted Christians around the world. Christian persecution experts estimated this year that over 365 million Christians around the world live in areas where they face intense discrimination because they are Christians, including the threat of kidnapping, torture, and death, among other atrocities. Syria, suffering a civil war for over a decade, was among those places as a result of the establishment of the Islamic State (ISIS) “caliphate” and the prevalence of jihadist terrorist groups in the country – including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that won the civil war on Saturday.
The fallen dictator of Syria, Assad, is an Alawite Shiite Muslim and ran a regime allied with the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. Despite Iran funding some of the most harrowing jihadist atrocities in the world, Assad himself did not persecute Christians due to their faith – his regime only targeted Christian political dissidents, as it did anyone who challenged his regime in any way.
HTS is an offshoot of al-Qaeda run by a terrorist who once worked directly under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the late ISIS “caliph.” While that leader – Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now wanting to be referred to by his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa – has insisted in recent interviews he does not intend to persecute any minority groups in Syria, his history has left many doubters to that promise and recalled similar assurances by the bloodthirsty Taliban of Afghanistan that they would form an “inclusive” government that, three years later, has failed to materialize.
The Taliban congratulated HTS on their deposing of Assad this weekend.
King, a religious persecution expert and author of several books on the subject, told Breitbart News that he is among the doubters.
“A good chunk of the country [Syria] is now in control of radical Islamists. These guys are Al Qaeda and ISIS hiding who they really are. They rebranded to obscure their nature and past,” King said. “The HTS government is a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
“The new rebel government is deadly and dangerous and will be a disaster for Christians. Furthermore, they will not be content with the territory they have now,” he added, suggesting that they would expand into areas they do not currently control. Some of the country had for years been outside of the control of the Assad regime, prominently the northern areas under control of the U.S.-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Syrian National Army (SNA), a jihadist proxy force for Islamist Turkey, launched a campaign in late November to dislodge the Kurdish populations of northern Syria simultaneous with, but unrelated to, the HTS march to Damascus.
Asked about Assad’s public image as a defender of Christians – which he and his patrons in Russia worked studiously to advance during his regime, King said that it was “accurate,” so long as Christians were not politically active in any way.
“Assad’s core concern was power and control. If the Christians didn’t go political (they didn’t and were aligned with him) they were safe,” King said.
This dynamic helps explained the starkly varying reactions to the fall of Assad from Christians in Syria to those in Lebanon, where Christian groups organized fireworks displays and street celebrations this weekend. In Lebanon – where the constitution protects the right to political participation for Christians by guaranteeing them the presidency – Christian political groups attribute to the Assad regime, acting in defense of the Iranian proxy terrorist group Hezbollah, several prominent assassinations.
Jolani, the HTS leader who still has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, has repeatedly stated in recent interviews that he does not wish to persecute Syria’s minority communities, but has not named Christians, specifically.
“No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them,” Jolani told CNN in an interview before Assad fled the country. Jolani insisted in the same remarks, however, that he intended to impose an Islamist regime in Syria and that those “who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly.”
Jolani has gone so far as to proclaim, “diversity is our strength,” in attempts to address alarm over his jihadists’ takeover of the country.
On Wednesday, Jolani spoke to the U.K.’s Sky News, his first Western media remarks since taking over the country. HE insisted that any concern in the West about his regime was “unnecessary.”
“The fear was from the presence of the regime. The country is moving towards development and reconstruction. It’s going towards stability,” he said.
Mohammad al-Bashir, who Jolani’s group chose to lead the “transition” away from the Assad regime, proclaimed on Wednesday that, “precisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria,” contradicting the modern history of Islamic governments. Bashir also claimed that HTS would not persecute anyone unless they “defended” Assad, but did not specify if the Christians forced into political silence by the Assad regime would be seen as collaborators.
“We should absolutely not trust the HTS government,” King warned. “The Christians may not be their core concern but the thing to focus on is who these guys are and their core ideology.”
“They are politically savvy and telling the West, Go back to sleep, we will be good boys and girls and everything is fine,” he continued. Just look at what Israel is doing: destroying their bases so as to limit their power and ability to project harm. There’s a reason they are doing that.”
The government of Israel, which has been engaged in a war against multiple Iranian proxy forces since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, is conducting military operations in Syria to protect itself from the new ruling jihadists, including destroying as much of the remaining Assad military as possible.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cited the need to protect Syrian minorities from terrorists as a core motivation for Israeli operations in the country.
King told Breitbart News that ICC has long operated in Syria to help persecuted Christians there and will continue to do so under the new regime.
“This work in Syria will go on and we are now facing a disaster as many (Christians) have fled to other cities,” he noted. “We need financial support for emergency relief: food, water, blankets, (probably tents). After emergency relief, we will re-appraise and see what next steps are needed.”