Muslim fundamentalists who aim to destroy religious coexistence in Syria are behind the unrest hitting the country but will “fail again”, presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban said yesterday.
Ms Shaaban, a high-profile adviser to President Bashar al-Assad, also said authorities have made the decision to lift emergency rule, which has been in force since the Baath party came into power in 1963.
“These are fundamentalists (behind the violence) who hate to see Syria as an example of peaceful coexistence,” Ms Shaaban said in an interview in Damascus.
“I think this is target number one: coexistence in Syria, and it is very different, it is separate, from the legitimate demands of the Syrian people.”
More than 30 people have been confirmed killed in a spiral of violence that has gripped Syria since a wave of dissent broke out earlier this month.
While the violence initially centred on Daraa, a tribal town at the southern border with Jordan, unrest has spilled into other cities, including the religiously diverse northern port city of Latakia.
The majority of Syria’s 22.5 million population are Sunni Muslims. The country is also home to Christians and a minority Alawite Muslim community, an offshoot of Shia Islam, who have long coexisted side-by-side.
Political power in Syria has been in the hands of the Alawite-controlled Baath party for close to 50 years. President Assad, who is facing unprecedented domestic pressure since rising to power in 2000, succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad as leader of the Middle Eastern powerhouse.
Hafez al-Assad dealt harshly with domestic opposition, and in 1982 launched a crackdown on Islamists in the town of Hama, where tens of thousands of people were killed in army bombardments.
Yesterday, Ms Shaaban held Islamist movements responsible for attempting to pit Syria’s confessional communities against one another.
“We trust our people. They were the ones who defeated the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982. Without the help of the Syrian people, we never could have defeated them,” she said.