LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was cruel to those he leaned on the most for support.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORN BEEPING)
FADEL: That's evident as soon as you pull into the Mezzeh 86 neighborhood in the shadow of Assad's palace.
Cinder block homes, unfinished. There are no roofs on some of the homes. And the people in the area say, they say about us that we got rich from the Assad regime. They say about us that we were with him. Look at our situation. We're the poorest.
It's a largely Alawite neighborhood, the religious sect of the Assad family, and many here have someone who served in the military, but also who fought with the rebels. Now, with Assad gone, they fear that they'll be blamed for the crimes he and his top loyalists committed against Syrians, even though they say they were victims of the same oppression.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Speaking Arabic).
FADEL: As soon as I start to ask questions, a crowd gathers around me. Ibrahim Heisa (ph) emerges to explain why so many Alawites stay in military service.
IBRAHIM HEISA: (Through interpreter) The regime would make us poor. They wouldn't give us food or drink or jobs. They would make us poor by burning our agriculture, our forests so we wouldn't work in agriculture, forcing us into the army.
FADEL: When Syria's peaceful uprising began in 2011, it was met with violence from the regime and turned into a civil war that pitted the country's sects against each other, the Sunni Arab majority against the Alawites and other minorities. Alawites are an offshoot of Shia Islam that make up about 10% of the country, but dominate the military's top ranks and intelligence. But those elite are a tiny sliver of this largely poor community.
Today, Heisa is excited, his blue eyes twinkling and his face lit up with what seems like an incurable smile. With Assad gone, the 27-year-old can finally leave his neighborhood. He was evading mandatory military service.
If Assad was still in power, could you be in the street right now?
HEISA: (Through interpreter) He can stay in his neighborhood, but he can't go out. If there's an army car, they would take me, so I wouldn't go down there to the street.
FADEL: He points to the end of the road, a couple blocks from where we stand. We walk down the road to open his family's perfume shop for the day as we continue the conversation.
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FADEL: He didn't want to serve in the army because he didn't want to fight against other Syrians, but also because conscripts were forced to risk their lives on the front lines while being paid next to nothing.
HEISA: (Through interpreter) If I went to the army, I can't study, and you'll spend eight years getting 17,000 per month, which is the price of these two coffee packets.
FADEL: It's about $1 on this day. He uses those packets to make us coffee. Ahay Ahmed (ph), a local taxi driver, walks in to join the conversation.
Have the Rebels come here to talk to the people?
AHAY AHMED: So they came here and anybody who's a soldier, they took their military ID and told them that you're a civilian now and they took away the weapons and they were very polite. They didn't harm anyone.
FADEL: But Ahmed's starting to sense a shift, even among the people closest to him. His fiance is Sunni and before Assad fled, her family all loved him. Now, with Assad gone, some of the uncles have turned.
AHMED: (Speaking Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: Exactly. They don't want Alawites in their family.
FADEL: Razi Mohammed (ph) swings by with a stack of fresh bread.
Outside of the neighborhood, of this neighborhood, are you all afraid to say that you're Alawite or it feels safe?
RAZI MOHAMMED: No, no, no, no. No. No.
FADEL: They lie at checkpoints and tell rebel soldiers they're Sunni and from Sunni areas, just in case. The three men offer to take us around the neighborhood. A woman in a hot pink nightgown and slippers walks up. She's been arguing with the Sunni neighbors because the pipes have been leaking for months into her home. She takes us inside to show us.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Through interpreter) We're talking to our neighbors to fix their pipes. They're not agreeing to. They're coming out of the window and saying, where are the Alawites?
FADEL: Sectarianism is seeping into regular neighborhood disputes. When I ask her name, she asks if I think Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, Syria's new leader who now goes by his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, will hurt her for what she's saying. That's the level of fear right now among Alawites, even as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, Sharaa's group that oversees the transitional government, says Alawites will be protected and part of a new free Syria under some sort of Islamic rule. This week, Alawite clerics put out a call for general amnesty for every segment of the Syrian population.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).
FADEL: Everyone, they said, lost lives in the painful events of this war. It is now time to heal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).
FADEL: But back in the neighborhood, none of this feels reassuring.
When HTS says anybody with no blood on their hands will be pardoned, nothing will happen, do you believe them?
MOHAMMED: (Through interpreter) All lies.
FADEL: Mohammed holds up a screenshot of a post he saw on Facebook from a different group.
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: (Through interpreter) He's saying we're not going to forgive anyone and we will kill the entire Alawite sect.
FADEL: The threats they're seeing online combined with the targeted bombings of their neighborhoods by extremists during the civil war, including this neighborhood, is why they're so afraid. They spent the past few days getting rid of any signs of Assad's government and his army, even signs of their own dead.
So there is a banner that used to hang right on the middle of this sort of main street of the neighborhood. They removed it, 'cause they were scared. There were three soldiers that were killed from the old army.
Two more banners that hung above the narrow roads and alleys further down are also gone. Mohammed takes us to a truck and points to the hood. It's one of the few tributes left to fallen soldiers still visible. Three men.
These are your children?
MOHAMMED: Yes, yes, yes.
FADEL: Tell me who they are.
MOHAMMED: Istasheer (ph), Mikael (ph) Ghadir (ph).
FADEL: Istasheer, Mikael, Ghadir.
FADEL: These are your sons...
MOHAMMED: (Through interpreter) They've been painted to hide their faces 'cause it's forbidden to have them now.
FADEL: Is that hard to do?
MOHAMMED: (Speaking Arabic).
FADEL: "Of course. I'm a father," he says. He puts his hand on the images of his sons. "They are my heart. They are my blood." As we walk back to our car, in the short time we'd been away on our tour, someone had hung a string of Syria's new flags above the garbage-strewn street. A man holds one of them up.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: It's very, very free. Syria is free.
FADEL: Almost like he feels he has to prove his loyalty to the new men in charge at a time their fate feels so uncertain. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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