<p >Following the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/interview-syria-defeat-russia-israel-security" target="_blank">overthrow</a> of the Syrian government by Turkish-backed <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/uyghur-jihadists-senior-posts-syria-islamist-security-forces" target="_blank">jihadist insurgents</a>, a continuous spate of attacks on Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities by <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/new-intel-chief-slams-policy-syria" target="_blank">Al Qaeda affiliated </a>Sunni radicals has escalated into massacres of entire Shiite population centres in the Latakia governate. After weeks of mass protests by the Shiite community against brutalisation by the new Islamist authorities, the taking up of arms by former military personnel in Latakia has been met with an overwhelming response, with footage showing heavily armed jihadist paramilitaries rolling into the governate in large numbers to restore their authority. Turkish special and regular forces have been reported to also be deploying to support these offensives, with footage from multiple sources confirming door to door massacres of Shiite civilians. This follows months of footage confirming killings, public humiliations and mass rapes by the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/trump-comments-turkey-unfriendly-takeover-syria-proxy" target="_blank">Turkish backed</a> Islamists. With many of the jihadists being former members or affiliates of the Islamic State terror group, including their leader self-appointed President Abu Muhammad Al Julani, conduct towards the Shiite population has born strong parallels to the massacres, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/review-of-middle-east-studies/article/abs/last-genocide-against-the-yazidi-people/2292B327FBBF85683986179501793ED5" >mass rapes and enslavement</a> of the Yazidi minority by Islamic State in Iraq.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/10/article_67cf033dda4bf6_94060208.jpg" title="Convoy of Jihadist Fighters Heading to Latakia"></p><p >As Shiite civilians in Latakia have faced ethnic cleansing on a considerable scale, the Russian Air Force’s sole facility in the Middle East, Khmeimim Airbase, has been confirmed to have accepted significant numbers of Shiite women and children fleeing attacks. There has been considerable speculation that Russia may have provided some limited support to Shiite communities allowing them to mount a more effective defence, although hopes expressed by a number of Shiite sources that Russia could intervene militarily using its aviation assets to protect them have not materialised. Straddling Syrian’s western coast, Latakia hosts Russia’s two most significant foreign military facilities including <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/alnusra-key-russian-airbase-syria-taken-out" target="_blank">Khmeimim Airbase </a>and the Tartus Military Stop, the former which has played a particularly central role in facilitating the projection of the country’s military power into the Middle East and Africa and beyond. Following the overthrow of the Syrian government, it was considered inevitable that these facilities would face closure, with Turkish-backed jihadist militants having repeatedly <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/the-turkish-backed-jihadists-in-syria-planning-a-war-against-china-syrian-army-thwarts-uyghur-jihadist-advances-again" target="_blank">singled them out </a>for attack both in prior years, and in a small number of cases since early 2025. The number of civilians sheltering in the base remains unknown, as does whether they may be evacuated to should jihadist groups permanently maintain control over Latakia.&nbsp;</p>