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Source: http://www.news.medubai.com/assad-response-to-syria-unrest-divides-his-own-sect-new-york-times/
Assad Response to Syria Unrest Divides His Own Sect
(New York Times) Neil MacFarquhar - As the Syrian conflict escalates to new levels of sectarian strife, President Assad is leaning ever more heavily on his religious base for support. The Alawite core of the elite security forces is still with him, as are many Syrians from minority groups. But interviews with a dozen Alawites indicated a complex split even within their ranks. Some Alawites are frustrated that security forces have not yet managed to crush the opposition, while others say that Assad is risking the future of the Alawites by pushing them to the brink of civil war with Sunni Muslims. In Damascus in the 1980s, new Alawite communities were formed to ring the capital, which the city's natives sometimes derisively call "settlements." Salam, 28, a businessman who grew up in one such area, said that early in the uprising, the government distributed automatic rifles there. "They told us, 'The Sunnis are going to kill you'." Reem, 28, an Alawite woman, helps organize anti-Assad rallies in Damascus. At the start of the uprising she could not show her face in her village. But on her most recent visit a month ago, no one cursed her activism. "They have begun to understand the real face of the Syrian crisis, that it is a popular revolution against a dictatorship, not against an Alawite regime."