Al-Alamein

A massacre unfolded over two consecutive days in the village of Al-Alamein in the southern Hama countryside, near Al-Rastan. On the first day, General Security forces loyal to the Jolani regime stormed the village, killed Alawite residents in the streets and inside their homes, and looted their property. Seventeen martyrs. The following day the same forces returned, detained a number of young men, and executed four of them in a local orchard. Twenty-one martyrs in total. The perpetrators then prevented the families from holding funeral processions or opening condolence houses, forcing them into silence. They dug a mass grave and threw all the bodies into it. The massacre drew bitter condemnation, with observers asking the same question: why was Jolani — who claimed to be pursuing "regime remnants" on the Syrian coast — ordering assaults on Alawite villages deep in the Hama countryside?