Targeted assassinations

As violence between opponents of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and regime forces rages across Syria, threatening to push the country closer to all-out civil war, a new brand of fear is spreading through the streets of the country's third-biggest city.

After the shooting of a fourth scientist in the flashpoint city of Homs, Syrians are whispering about the return of the targeted assassinations which punctuated the reign of Bashar's father Hafez during his own crackdown on opponents during the 1980s.

Nuclear engineer Aws Abdel Karim Khalil, reportedly shot in the head by unknown assailants as his wife was driving him to work on September 28, was the latest scientist to be murdered since the uprising against the al-Assad regime began in March.

His death followed those of Mohamed Ali Aqil, deputy rector of the architecture faculty at Al-Baath University, and Nael Dakhil, director of the military petrochemical school, who were shot and killed the day before. Hassan Eid, a surgeon at Homs' general hospital, was murdered on September 26.

The murders have not only given rise to the fear that Syria is witnessing a return to the policy used by former President Hafez al-Assad in his campaign against the Muslim Brotherhood some three decades ago but have stoked wild speculation as to who is responsible and why.

Given the historical precedent, opponents of the current al-Assad regime have accused the president of emulating his father and holding him responsible for the "flow of Syrian blood" in Homs.

Ethnic violence

The Al-Ghad alliance of anti-regime activists claimed that al-Assad was promoting discord, distrust and violence in the Homs community by targeting scientific personalities from different ethnic groups. Khalil, who recently went public with calls for reform, and Eid were both from the minority Alawite sect of Islam, to which President al-Assad also belongs, while Aqil was a Shiite Muslim and Dakhil a Christian.

"The regime does have an interest in stoking the fears of the minorities, and the opposition has an interest to reassure minorities that a new regime will not limit their rights and freedoms," Professor Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told Deutsche Welle.

"The regime is certainly using assassinations to promote its agenda across Syria," he said. "Also it is trying to - let us say - rebuild the wall of fear that has been broken down during the last months through its actions in Homs."

Marina Ottaway, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Bashar was clearly playing on deep-rooted fears.

"He may be more successful in convincing Christians and Alawites that they need his protection," she told Deutsche Welle. "The key to change here may be if Alawite officers start defecting, showing people that Bashar is not their only hope."

Tensions have been rising between the city's Sunni Muslim majority and districts inhabited by Alawites since the uprising began.

Faith and fighting

To begin with, the anti-regime protests in Homs were attended and led by a cross section of the city's sects; Sunni, Christian and Alawite demonstrators originally showed a united front in the early protests in the city in April and May.

But as the crackdown across Syria has worsened under al-Assad's Alawite regime, the sectarian feelings in Homs have darkened and while the city's Alawites have often spoken out against their president's harsh tactics, many feel they have been forced to defend his regime by the growing resentment against him. They fear what will happen to them if his regime falls.

Others with a strong allegiance to al-Assad have taken advantage of the lawlessness in Homs to target their ethnic rivals and form militia in support of the regime forces throughout the city.

"The assassinations of these scientists suggest that the conflict in Syria is increasingly taking on a religious and communal aspect," Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told Deutsche Welle.

"The Alawite community is holding them up as martyrs of their cause and as proof that the struggle that the regime is fighting is not one of liberty versus tyranny but of fanaticism versus law and order," he said.

According to Landis, the opposition is arguing that Assad ordered the scientists killed so that the regime could blame Sunnis and provoke civil war. This in turn would help his cause to suppress legitimate popular demands for freedom and regime change.

Unknown threat

The murders of the scientists have now added an extra dimension to this growing tension, sending shockwaves through the scientific community in Homs, with academics and scientists - regardless of ethnicity or allegiance - fearing for their lives while the rest of the city's inhabitants become even more suspicious and fearful of neighbors and colleagues.

Some rumors, mainly circulated by the pro-regime media, suggest that al Qaeda-affiliated groups, which have infiltrated Homs with the intention of exploiting the turmoil and spreading radical Islam, are responsible for the murders. Others suggest that Israel's secret service Mossad is taking advantage of the situation to target Syrian scientists, much in the same way as it has been accused of doing in Iran in an attempt to sabotage its nuclear program.

Whoever is carrying out the assassinations and for whatever reason, the fact remains that the killings have added to the panic being felt in Homs. The ensuing widespread ethnic violence could rip apart any solidarity the community had in its opposition to the government crackdown.

Author: Nick Amies
Editor: Rob Mudge