Citizen Zahid Younis Mustafa, 66 years old, originally from the village of Kafr Nan in the northern Homs countryside in central Syria, was killed on Sunday, 30 November 2025, after being targeted by gunfire from gunmen while returning from the city of Homs to his village.
The victim is one of the أبناء of the village of Kafr Nan and belongs to the Murshidi sect. According to the available information, gunmen opened fire on the citizen while he was passing through an area located between the predominantly Turkmen village of Tasnin and the village of Kafr Nan, causing his immediate death.
On the evening of the same day, the victim’s body was found lying between the villages of Kafr Nan and Tasnin, bearing gunshot wounds, before it was transferred to one of the hospitals in the city of Al-Rastan, after which his family was informed of the incident.
This crime comes within the context of a series of killings with a sectarian background that the village of Kafr Nan has witnessed over the past period, during which six of its أبناء were killed in three separate incidents.
The most recent of these incidents was the killing of the civilian youth Amjad Rakan Al-Suweid on 27 September 2025, after he was shot inside his car in the center of the village of Tasnin. Four farmers from the Alawite and Murshidi sects were also killed while working on their agricultural lands in the village of Kafr Nan on 3 May 2025, one of whom was the brother of the victim who was killed in today’s incident. This was preceded by the killing of another person from the village “at the hands of gunmen” on 12 January 2025.
This comes at a time when hate speech against various sects, religions, and ethnicities in Syria has escalated, particularly after Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham extended its control over the area, which has contributed to increased societal division and the stoking of violence, amid the continued absence of accountability for the instigators, most of whom are close to the interim authority.
