On the afternoon of 9 March 2025, Syrian government security forces [Jolani’s Hay’at Tahriral-Sham terrorists] and affiliated armed factions killed 44 unarmed Alawite civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, in the village of Brabishbo in Latakia Governorate on the Syrian coast. They also massacred seven people in the adjacent village of Zobar.

Survivors of the massacres in Brabishbo and Zobar provided The Cradle with testimony of the events that took place. The names of those giving testimony have been changed for security reasons.

The survivors say the massacres were carefully planned and premeditated by those affiliated with the Syrian government, including internal security forces known as General Security and Division 400 of the Syrian army.

The Cradle previously documented a massacre in an adjacent village, Sharifa, in which Syrian security forces and affiliated armed factions murdered 30 Alawite civilians on 7 and 8 March.

The massacres in Brabishbo, Zobar, and Sharifa were part of a larger series of massacres carried out by Syrian security forces and affiliated armed factions in dozens of locations across the Syrian coast starting on 7 March.

After Alawite insurgents battled Syrian security forces on 6 March, Syrian authorities dispatched tens of thousands of fighters to the coastal regions. These included fighters from armed factions affiliated with the Ministry of Defense and General Security.

Formal Syrian forces were joined by armed civilians after religious authorities from the Syrian government issued calls for jihad from mosques across the country.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), these fighters executed at least 1,557 Alawite civilians in 58 separate locations.

Many videos showing the murder of Alawites were taken and posted to social media by the perpetrators themselves.

Reuters reported that dozens of videos went viral showing gunmen executing unarmed Alawite men in their homes and in the streets. Some were forced to crawl on the ground and bark like dogs before they were assassinated.

When word began to spread of the massacres in Sharifa and elsewhere on the Syrian coast on Friday, 7 March, most of the men from Brabishbo fled to the forests and mountains around the village.

Two days later, on Sunday 9 March, General Security members contacted a local Alawite sheikh, giving him assurances that anyone returning to their homes would be safe, while threatening that anyone remaining in the forests would be considered a “remnant of the regime” of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and hunted down and killed. The General Security also spread this message among women in the village.

That afternoon, after many of the men had believed the promises of safety and returned, General Security units quickly surrounded the village, blocked all roads, and began systematically searching and looting homes.

Soon after, a massive convoy of General Security military vehicles carrying members of affiliated armed factions, including foreigners, entered Brabishbo.

As elsewhere on the coast, masked men from the armed factions went door to door slaughtering any Alawite men they found, including many elderly. They also killed several women and children.

The full Cradle Media report