Even though "the sects have coexisted for decades (if not longer).
You know, I recall seeing a balkanized map of the Middle East long ago, a purview of the neo-con globe-kickers, and it contained a split-up Syria.
"Assad loyalists could try to form new state in port city" New York Times, December 23, 2012
TARTUS, Syria — Loyalists who support the government of President Bashar Assad are flocking to the Mediterranean port of Tartus, creating an overflowing boomtown far removed from the tangled, scorched rubble that now mars most Syrian cities.
There are no shellings or air raids to interrupt the daily calm. Families pack the cafes lining the town’s seaside corniche, usually abandoned in December to the salty winter winds. The real estate market is brisk. A small Russian naval base provides at least the impression that salvation, if needed, is near.
Many of the new residents are members of the Alawite minority, the same Shi’ite sect to which Assad belongs. The latest influx is fleeing from Damascus, people who have decided that summer villas, however chilly, are preferable to the looming battle for the capital.
‘‘Going to Tartus is like going to a different country,’’ said a Syrian journalist who recently met residents there. ‘‘It feels totally unaffected and safe. The attitude is, ‘We are enjoying our lives while our army is fighting overseas.’’’
If Damascus falls to the opposition, Tartus could become the heart of an attempt to create a different country. Some expect that Assad and the security elite will try to survive the collapse by establishing an Alawite rump state along the coast, with Tartus as their new capital.
There have been various signs of preparations.
This month, the governor of Tartus Province announced that experts were studying how to develop a tiny local airfield, now used by crop-dusters, into a full-fledged civilian airport ‘‘to boost transportation, business, travel, and tourism,’’ as the official Syrian news agency, SANA, reported.
The announcement coincided with the first attacks on the Damascus airport, forcing it to close temporarily to international traffic.
If Assad fled to Tartus, he could seek protection from the Russian naval base there or flee aboard a Russian vessel. Russia announced Tuesday that it was sending a small flotilla toward Tartus, possibly to evacuate its citizens who live in Syria.
Related: Russians Rushing From Syria
There is a precedent for a rump state. France, the colonial power in the region in the early 20th century, fostered an Alawite state from 1920 to 1936, but it eventually merged with what became an independent Syria.
That's also why the French are a bit out front on Syria. Colonial empires never forget.
--more--"
That's the last I saw or heard of a rump state in Syria in my Boston Globe.
"Damascus in dark as electricity fails; In the north, rise in sectarian attacks reported" Associated Press, February 17, 2013
DAMASCUS — A power failure plunged Damascus and southern Syria into darkness late Saturday, Syria’s state news agency said, while antiregime activists reported a string of tit-for-tat, sectarian kidnappings in the country’s north....
A similar blackout struck Damascus and southern Syria Jan. 20, leaving many residents with no way to heat their homes on a cold winter night. The government blamed that outage on a rebel attack, and power was restored to most areas the following day.
In equatorial Syria?
The Syrian capital’s 2.5 million residents have grown used to frequent power cuts as the country’s conflict has damaged infrastructure and sapped the government’s finances.
Meanwhile, the kidnappings point to the dark sectarian overtones of Syria’s civil war....
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 42 Shi’ites, including mainly women and children, were snatched Thursday from a bus that was traveling from the Shi’ite villages of Foua and Kfarya to the capital Damascus. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman, said it was not clear who took them, adding that Shi’ites have refused to give the names of those kidnapped or details about the make or color of the bus.
Since then, however, Shi’ite gunmen from the two villages have kidnapped more than 300 people from nearby Sunni villages, Abdul-Rahman said.
The kidnappings highlighted how much the civil war has heightened sectarian tensions. Kidnapping for ransom has grown common across Syria since the crisis began in March 2011, but sectarian and political abductions have been rare.
Antiregime activists in Idlib reached via Skype confirmed the kidnappings, but gave much lower numbers for the number of people involved....
Abdul-Rahman and activist Fadi al-Yassin said such acts could incite sectarian clashes between Shiites, who have largely sided with the regime, and majority Sunnis in Idlib, where the sects have coexisted for decades.
The high number of women and children allegedly taken prompted the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, to issue a statement calling for their release.
‘‘Allegations of abduction and rape of women and girls by armed groups have been received,’’ she said. ‘‘I am deeply concerned about the well-being of these women and children and would like to remind the armed group responsible for this abduction that acts of sexual violence will not be tolerated.’’
Depends on who did it. See: Brahimi’s Bulls***
And they will be tolerated, won't they? After the fact prosecutions, if they occur at all, are a form of toleration.
In the nearby province of Aleppo, rebels and troops fought fierce battles around the military air base of Kweiras, which opposition forces have been trying to capture for weeks, the Observatory said.
In the city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest urban center and commercial capital, rebels and troops battled around the international airport and the nearby air base of Nairab, said the Observatory and the Aleppo Media Center.
--more--"
