On the morning of 15 December 2025, gunmen riding a motorcycle opened direct fire on a civilian in front of his commercial shop in the city of Homs in western Syria, killing him instantly. The attack took place in an area very close to a detachment of the “General Security” affiliated with the interim authority represented by “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” as the victim’s shop is located adjacent to that detachment.
According to the available information, no intervention or pursuit was recorded by the personnel present at the site, despite the proximity of the crime scene to them, which raises serious questions regarding the responsibility of the controlling authority to protect civilians in the area.
The victim is the citizen Mousa Ahmad Ismail, a civilian from the Alawite sect, who worked in gas distribution and owned a commercial shop in the al-Wuroud neighborhood of the city of Homs.
The killing of Mousa Ahmad Ismail comes within a broader context of violations affecting civilians from the Alawite sect in various areas of Syria, particularly in regions under the control of “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.” On 14 December 2025, local sources documented the abduction of the father Ghiyath Kanuj and his son Ahmad Kanuj while they were working on their agricultural land on the al-Furn road in the village of al-Saboura in the eastern countryside of al-Salamiyah in Hama governorate, by gunmen affiliated with the General Security of the interim authority. The two victims are civilians working in agriculture, and the abduction was carried out publicly in front of the village’s residents.
The same period also witnessed other incidents of arrest and enforced disappearance, including the arrest of the two underage youths Ali Haytham Assaf and Hadi Nizar Assaf (17 years old) from the town of al-Muzayri‘a in the countryside of Latakia on 13 December 2025 while they were on their way to sell milk, without charges being brought or their place of detention being disclosed. Cases of disappearance were also recorded on the Syrian coast, including Basel Nasr Saqour (36 years old) in the village of Jabal al-Nouba in the countryside of Salanfa on 12 December, Muhammad Samir Ajib while traveling from his village of Fadra to the city of Latakia on 11 December, and Jaafar Muhammad Mousa (25 years old) after leaving his home in the village of Ain Shaqaq in the countryside of Jableh on 7 December. In addition, surveillance cameras documented the abduction of Ali Talal al-Hassan in the Kafr Sousa area of the capital Damascus on 12 December.
The killing of Mousa Ahmad Ismail, alongside the other incidents mentioned, reflects a troubling escalation in the targeting of civilians, particularly from religious and sectarian minorities, amid the absence of official information regarding the perpetrators or the fate of the abducted and forcibly disappeared, and the continued impunity in areas under the control of the interim authority.
