JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Now to Syria, where the promise of the early days of the new government's takeover seems to be evaporating. The killing of hundreds from the Alawite religious minority is posing serious obstacles to unifying the country after nearly 14 years of civil war. The new government has sealed off the area where the clashes took place, but as NPR's Jane Arraf reports, tensions had been brewing for weeks already. And a warning - this report contains graphic descriptions of violence.
(CROSSTALK)
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: In the village of Miryamin, a few miles from the major city of Homs in western Syria, we enter the home of Wissam Bilal and walk into a chorus of grief.
MAISE MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
IBTISAM BILAL: (Speaking Arabic).
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
BILAL: (Speaking Arabic).
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
(CROSSTALK)
ARRAF: It's late January, just five days since Bilal, who was 40, was dragged out of the house by masked gunmen and shot dead.
BILAL: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: The home still looks like a crime scene. His sister takes me by the hand into ransacked bedrooms, past a sofa with the cushions shot out, a TV with a bullet hole. They shot in front of a 4-year-old child says Bilal's older sister, Ibtisam Bilal.
BILAL: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: She says the boy is so traumatized, he imitates the sound of gunfire.
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: His widow, Maise Mohammad, says the gunman took all their money and their gold jewelry, anything of value, and even things like their photo albums that weren't. Ibtisam says the gunman called them pigs and drove away in her brother's car. Mohammad is still in shock.
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "Where is public security?" she asks. Ibtisam says they want international protection. Bilal was a car dealer who had been a low-level security officer, a job he took because they needed the money, his sister says.
BILAL: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: The residents of Miryamin are mostly Alawite, an offshoot of Shia Islam, and the same sect as toppled President Bashar al-Assad. They and other minorities seen as supporting the former regime have been targeted by Sunni Arab fighters.
BILAL: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "This is not the liberation of Syria," Ibtisam says, referring to the name of the group now in power in Damascus. "This is the destruction of Syria."
HAIDER: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Nine-year-old Haider says he wants his dad. He describes seeing gunmen throwing his father to the ground and covering his head before taking him away.
MOHAMMAD: (Crying, speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Mohammad is now a 30-year-old widow with three young children. The family blames the new government for not protecting them.
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "To whom do we complain?" she asks. "Who will return a father to his child?" The attacks are an extremely sensitive issue for a government trying to persuade citizens they will be safe in this new Syria. A top political official in the Homs governor's office acknowledges the killings but says the gunmen who entered Miryamin were not connected with government forces.
OBEID AL-ARNAUT: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "These are criminals," says Obeid al-Arnaut. He blames regime remnants trying to sabotage the new government. He says gunmen who rampaged through the village are now in jail. But Ibtisam Bilal told NPR a month later that they had still heard nothing from authorities.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIKE ENGINE)
ARRAF: At a shop on the main street, we talked to more victims of the daylong attack on the village.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: A young man, his broken hands wrapped in blue bandages, says masked gunmen beat him with sticks after dragging him out by the hair.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: His elderly mother says they stopped only when she kissed the leader's boots. He gave her his name, a common nom de guerre of a Chechen fighter. None of these victims want their names used because they fear for their lives.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: One young man says the gunman told them to bark like dogs and recorded it with their phones.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Another tells us his father was taken to prison and hasn't been seen since.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: This father says his son is still missing. We later find out his family found his body in the morgue. The governor's office in Homs did not respond to requests for comment.
YUSUF: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: Even the elderly were beaten. Yusuf, 68, says the men made a meal and pointed a gun at his chest before robbing him.
YUSUF: (Speaking Arabic).
ARRAF: "We want a country where there's coexistence," Yusuf says of multiethnic, multisectarian Syria. He says they have no other choice. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Miryamin, Syria. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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