At the onset of Syria’s civil war beginning in 2011, extremist rebel factions blew up churches, burned crosses and seized the property and homes of Christians as the “spoils of war.”
That memory was awakened for Christians on Saturday as rebel forces, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, advanced on one of Syria’s largest cities, Aleppo.
The rebels seemed to face little resistance as they overwhelmed the city. Local reports said government forces rapidly folded.
The Syrian civil war erupted during the height of the Arab Spring uprisings when President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on protests calling for democratic reform. That escalated into a war between forces loyal to Assad and a patchwork of armed groups opposed to his rule, some extremist and others more moderate.
World powers were sucked in. Some rebels received backing from Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf countries, and made significant gains in the war’s early years.
But with support from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, Assad’s forces retook much of the territory captured by the rebels. A Russian and Turkish-backed ceasefire in 2020 mostly froze the fighting.
With Syria’s longtime allies distracted by their own conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, the rebels seemed to jump at an opportunity to go on the offensive.
Aleppo is home to a mosaic of Christians from Armenians to Arab Christians to Syriac Orthodox. Before the war, Christians made up about 10% of Syria’s population, or about 2 million people, according to the U.S. Center for International Religious Freedom. That number today is estimated to be about 3.6%.
The Syriac Orthodox community, led by the bishop of Antioch, numbered around 15,000 before the civil war. That number has dwindled to just 3,000.
So far, the fighting has largely avoided Christians.
Islamist group HTS was at one point linked to al-Qaeda. In 2012 when opposition forces took the eastern half of Aleppo, HTS enforced a strict Islamist ideology. They closed churches and refused religious celebrations.
But in recent years, the group has claimed to rebrand itself, severing ties with al-Qaeda. In 2020, the leader of HTS, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, met with representatives of Christian communities. This year, Julani urged his fighters to be kind to the people in the city.
One Syriac woman, whose name was removed for fear of reprisal, considered leaving with her family for Qamishli as the rebels advanced. But as fighting intensified, she said it became too dangerous to take the roads. It’s been relatively safe so far, she said. They’ve been able to decorate for Christmas.
Others aren’t buying it. In the days after the city fell, a group of Christian students fled to a gas station near the airport on their way out of the city. Lying on the ground as the sound of gunfire rang out, their bus driver was shot. They returned to the city and sheltered inside a church. By Tuesday morning, they shuffled onto buses and departed for safety in northeastern Syria.
One Assyrian man told the Journal his family is bracing for retaliation by the Syrian government. When this happens, he said, Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriacs will once again be vulnerable.
“Once there is resistance, [the rebels] will try to do something,” he said. “When they feel like they’re stable, they can do whatever they like.”