Rise of Shia Militias and Drug Trade in Homs Informal Area Push Alawites Out

Over the last two years, Alawites residing in the informal Al-Abbasiyah neighbourhood in eastern Homs have increasingly felt that the area is no longer suitable for living – and some have relocated to other parts of the city – due to the growing influence of armed Shia militias and their involvement in illegal drug trade.

Al-Abbasiyah, next to the Zahraa and Deir Baalba neighbourhoods, is one of the informal settlements in the city of Homs with weaker infrastructure and poorer services. Al-Abbasiyah emerged in the late 1970s as part of the expansion of informal construction beyond the Zahraa neighbourhood. Most houses in the area are unlicensed common properties, constructed on land classified as agricultural where building is prohibited. Additionally, a substantial amount of unlicensed construction is on state-owned land.

Initially, the majority of Al-Abbasiyah’s residents were Alawites working as public sector employees or within the security and military forces in Homs. Over time, due to lower rent prices compared to other informal settlements in Homs, Al-Abbasiyah attracted many poor Shia from the rural areas of Homs and Hama, who were seeking employment in the city.

After 2011, many young men from the neighbourhood volunteered to fight within militias loyal to the regime, particularly within the National Defence militia for Alawites, while most Shia fighters joined the ranks of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Some local militias participated in fighting against opposition factions in nearby Sunni neighbourhoods like Deir Baalba and Al-Bayada. Despite this involvement in support of the regime, the economic situation in the informal settlement and its infrastructure did not see significant improvements contrary to other pro-regime neighbourhoods such as Zahraa and Wadi Al-Dahab.

Over the years of armed conflict, the informal area has attracted many Shia who have moved there from villages and towns in the rural areas of Homs, Idlib, and Aleppo. Some of these were forcibly displaced from the towns of Kafraya and Al-Fuaa in rural Idlib, where they were expelled by opposition forces.

Drug trafficking and smuggling have become profitable economic activities that attract more residents of the informal area, a correspondent for The Syria Report in Homs explained. Drug gangs operate under the protection of local Shia militias, which effectively control the area. The rise of Shia militias and their involvement in illegal drug trade has become a source of concern for the Alawite residents of the neighbourhood. Many Alawite families have left the neighbourhood amid public complaints about the lack of security, the absence of a police station, the total absence of official and municipal authorities, and their failure to intervene to control loose weapons, security breaches, and armed clashes between gangs, the correspondent explained. An Alawite resident described Al-Abbasiyah as being completely outside the control of the Syrian state.

A local source from the neighbourhood confirmed to The Syria Report correspondent that the Alawites in the area are also armed and organised into militias, but they fear confrontation with the better-armed and organised Shia militias, supported by Hezbollah and Iran’s Quds Force.

Said, an Alawite living in the neighbourhood and owner of a small store, said that the state is much more cautious with the Shia than with the Alawites. Said recalls that the first residents of the informal area were poor Alawite employees who had moved to Homs from its countryside and built unlicensed homes on public or agricultural land where building was prohibited. During that period, some Shia rented homes that Alawites had built in the neighbourhood. At that time, as Said says, the Shia did not undertake their own unlicensed construction, not because they could not afford it, but because they feared that the municipal authorities in Homs would demolish those homes, as they did not have family connections with military or security officials, unlike their Alawite neighbours. Comparing the current situation with the past, Said notes that Alawites in the neighbourhood are now selling their homes to Shia. He describes this as “a precursor to emptying the neighbourhood of its Alawite residents and turning it into a Shia area.”

Many residents of the informal settlements, interviewed by The Syria Report, expressed their willingness to sell their homes and relocate to more stable areas, especially Zahraa or Wadi Al-Dahab. However, housing prices in these areas are much higher than those in Al-Abbasiyah. Some Alawites have recently moved to Zahraa and Wadi Al-Dahab despite the higher housing prices, while others, as a preliminary step, have transferred their children to schools in Zahraa and Wadi Al-Dahab since the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year.

Salafa, an Alawite employee from Al-Abbasiyah, said that the area is highly militarised, with Shia militia members wearing uniformed black military attire. They move in armed groups, causing noise and firing randomly without warning, apparently with the intention of forcing other community members to leave the area. Salafa believes that the Shia militias deliberately aim to make Al-Abbasiyah their own exclusive area, allowing them to form a “homogeneous community” similar to Beirut’s southern suburbs where the militias can manage and organise the area and improve its services and living conditions, independent of state authority.

Siham, an Alawite who works as a nurse in a government hospital in Homs, said that a new hospital not affiliated with the Syrian Ministry of Health was built in Al-Abbasiyah a year ago. All its staff, including doctors, nurses, and technicians, are either Shia or Alawites who have undergone security vetting by the Shia militias. Siham explained that Alawite nurses who found employment opportunities at the hospital were required to wear the hijab in the Shia style as a precondition for work, in exchange for salaries higher than those in public hospitals.

Rabie, another Alawite from the neighbourhood, was forced to leave the area with his family and sell his home after members of a drug smuggling gang moved into the house opposite theirs. The entire street has become noisier and more dangerous, with many armed individuals roaming freely in the neighbourhood, gathering and firing shots regularly, he said. Rabie noted that the mood among the Shia in the neighbourhood has changed significantly in the last couple of years, becoming less tolerant of other groups.

Ahmad, an Alawite who is a member of a pro-government militia and a resident of Al-Abbasiyah, was also forced to leave the area with his family following a local dispute that escalated into an armed clash involving militia members from both sides, resulting in one fatality and several injuries. Ahmad said that members of a Shia militia threw a hand grenade at one of his relative’s houses to force them to leave, and they did. Ahmad said that community leaders from both sides intervened to resolve the conflict peacefully, but “everyone is armed in the neighbourhood, and the Alawites are in the weakest position,” he said. Ahmad added that Alawites have always considered the state as supportive, but in Al-Abbasiyah, it is completely absent — no police, no security apparatus.