Leaders of Syria's Christian minority have made a plea for co-existence in meetings with the first members of the US Congress to visit the country since the fall of Bashar Al Assad.
Two Republican members of the US House of Representatives, Cory Mills and Marlin Stutzman, visited Syria on Easter weekend as their fellow Christians there voice fears about the ascendancy of the Islamist forces who pushed Mr Al Assad's regime out four months ago.
The trip by the two members of US President Donald Trump's party was organised by the Syrian-American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity, a group seeking to promote a new order in Damascus and end US sanctions that were mostly imposed during Mr Al Assad's rule.
His removal by forces led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) has all but ended 14 years of civil war in which many Christians and other minorities supported the regime against Sunni rebels. HTS, a group formerly linked with Al Qaeda, is led by self-declared President Ahmad Al Shara. However, sectarian violence has continued, claiming victims from the country's Alawite minority.
Mr Al Shara has sent troops and militias to subdue Alawite coastal areas that formed the heartland of support for his predecessor. Sectarian bloodshed in the region quickly followed, culminating in the killing of at least 1,300 people, mostly Alawite civilians, in early March.
Mr Stutzman, who represents Florida, met clergy and other Christians on Saturday in the city of Sednaya, situated in mountains north of Damascus. The city is home to a major Orthodox monastery. An HTS commander in charge of security for the area, known by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmad, also attended the meeting, according to witnesses.
“We told him [Mr Stutzman] that we were relieved that there is civil peace and communal existence in Syria,” said a senior member of the Orthodox clergy. ”
In 2010, the last year before the revolt against Mr Al Assad, Syria had as about 850,000 Christians, or about 4.5 per cent of the population. Late in 2011, the civil war broke out, broadly pitting Mr Al Assad's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, against the Sunni Muslim majority.
A Christian businessman said he raised the issue of US sanctions and the need for them to be removed. “Like all Syrians, Christians also want the prosperity of Syria,” he said. He added that the Christians of Sednaya have been stigmatised because they did not join the anti-Al Assad revolt, unlike the surrounding Sunni cities and towns.
Mr Mills, who met Mr Al Shara, and Mr Stutzman also toured parts of Damascus, including the suburb of Jobar. Once home to 300,000 people, it was destroyed by regime and Russian bombing in the war.
“It is important to report all the positive things happening with the new government,” Mr Stutzman said, citing an influx of refugees who have been returning to the country. “There is a new day. It is really important that we have a friendly leader here.”
Mr Mills visited the Christian neighbourhood of Bab Touma in the Old City of Damascus and was briefed by residents on the “normal” conditions in the area, a clergyman said.
He recounted how HTS have allowed Christian youth known as the Fazaa to help the authorities police Bab Touma, as well as the adjacent Christian district of Qassaa.
“We have no choice but to work with the new regime,” he said, describing other hardliners in the community as “delusional” because they think they can mobilise western support to bring back Mr Al Assad.
However, friction exists, he said, citing an incident in Qasaa this month, where an HTS-linked member of the security forces yelled at a Christian woman that she should wear a veil. He was surrounded by members of the Fazaa and eventually left, although one Fazaa member reportedly hurled insults at him.
“He could have summoned supporters and the situation could have easily not ended this way,” the clergyman said. “We as Christians have to be careful”.
