Syrian Jihadism by Aron Lund

Sectarian makeup of the regime
The sectarian issues in Syria are rooted in a complex history of social disparities between
(and within) religious communities, as well as in doctrinaire theological conflict, cross-border
religious linkages, and political manipulation. 6
SYRIA’S ETHNORELIGIOUS
DEMOGRAPHY (estimate):
Sunni Arabs: 65%
Alawites: 12%
Sunni Kurds: 9%
Christians: 9%
Druze: 3%
Others: 2%
In general terms, the Syrian government has, since the late 1960s, been dominated by a small
group of Alawite Arab military families from the Latakia and Tartous governorates, and their
tribal, political and personal allies from among a somewhat wider range of sectarian and
regional backgrounds. At the center of this largely Alawite network stands the presidential
family, the Assads, flanked by their second branch, the Makhloufs. In addition, larger
communities of Alawites, Christians, Druze, secular Sunnis, and others anxious to preserve
some aspect of the regime, will actively or passively support it.
Contrary to popular belief, there has always existed a rather significant bloc of Sunni Arab
public support for the Assad family, without which it would have been unable to rule
effectively. In the late Bashar el-Assad era, this pro-regime Sunni community has included
much of the urban middle class, wealthy business circles, Baath Party members, military
families, favored rural tribes, and other beneficiaries of regime patronage. Since late 2011,
this “soft” side of the regime is crumbling. The growing trickle of state/army defections is
nearly 100 percent Sunni, and must be regarded as an indication that the regime is coming
apart at its sectarian seams, threatening to leave Assad with only the Alawite-military core of
6 See Nikolaos van Dam, The Struggle for Power in Syria. Politics and Society under Asad and the Ba’th Party, I. B. Tauris &
Co., rev. 4th ed, 2011; Hanna Batatu, Syria’s Peasantry, the Descendants of Its Lesser Rural Notables, and Their Politics,
Princeton University Press, 1999; Raymond A. Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above, Routledge, 2002.
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