On 23 November 2025, the city of Homs in central Syria witnessed a wave of attacks and armed assaults targeting neighborhoods with an Alawite majority, following a murder that took place earlier the same morning in the town of Zaidal, south of the city. The victims were a Sunni couple belonging to the Bani Khalid tribe – the Al-Nasser clan. Sectarian-tinged phrases were found at the crime scene.
Developments After the Incident: Storming of Alawite Neighborhoods
Following the spread of news of the crime, tension in Homs escalated rapidly, and the city witnessed wide-scale armed attacks involving individuals from the Bani Khalid tribe and groups of Bedouins, primarily targeting the predominantly Alawite neighborhoods.
The gunmen targeted the following neighborhoods: (al-Zahraa, al-Armen, al-Muhajireen, al-Basel Suburb (al-Dahiya), al-Firdous, al-Abbasiya, al-Wuroud, al-Sabeel).
According to testimonies, photos, and video clips, the assaults included the following:
Random gunfire at streets, homes, and passers-by.
Storming of shops and homes and smashing their contents.
Vandalizing and burning civilian cars belonging to residents from the Alawite and Christian communities.
Burning shops and stalls in the al-Armen, al-Muhajireen, al-Dahiya, and al-Zahraa neighborhoods.
Attacks on Christian civilians’ homes in the vicinity of Um al-Noor Church (Agadir Street).
Chanting revenge slogans and shouting takbeers during the storming.
Recorded injuries during the first hours of the attacks.
Residents of the affected neighborhoods reported that the assaults included killings, arrests, and intimidation targeting Alawite civilians, in addition to the burning of private property.
Amid the expanding scope of the attacks and the inability to control the situation, the security authorities in the city issued emergency instructions, including “closing the roads leading to the targeted neighborhoods, requesting that students remain inside schools until the situation stabilizes, and directing residents of al-Muhajireen and surrounding neighborhoods to close their shops and stay in their homes.”
Despite these measures, gunfire continued and the security situation deteriorated in most of the tense neighborhoods.
These events come amid a sharp rise in sectarian tension in Homs, where the city has for some time been witnessing daily killings and kidnappings targeting civilians from the Alawite community. This has been accompanied by mutual accusations between residents and authorities of exploiting criminal incidents to fuel social division.
Local voices also expressed fears of the existence of “organized attempts to displace Alawite residents from Homs,” as accusations emerged that “the fabrication of the problem through the killing of two people from Bani Khalid was intended to ignite strife that would later be exploited for displacement operations.”
