Syrian President grants three-month extension to committee probing coastal killings

DAMASCUS - Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has extended a deadline for a fact-finding committee to produce its report on the killings of Alawites on Syria's coast last month, the deadliest episode of sectarian violence since Sunni Islamist rebels seized power.

Hundreds of Alawites were killed in Syria's western coastal region in early March in apparent retribution for a deadly ambush on Syria's new security forces by armed loyalists to toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Alawite.

On March 9, Sharaa tasked a fact-finding committee with producing a report within 30 days that would help determine the perpetrators and hold them to account. When asked by Reuters if fighters from his defence ministry were involved in the killings, he said it was up to the committee to find evidence.

In a decree published late on Thursday, Sharaa said the committee had requested more time to complete its work and that he would grant it a non-renewable three-month extension.

The committee has said no one would be above the law and that perpetrators would be held to account by the judiciary. Its spokesman Yasser Farhan told reporters last month its members had interviewed witnesses in several coastal districts and had two more cities there to visit.

Diana Semaan, Syria researcher at Amnesty International, said the committee should be given "adequate time, access and resources to carry out a thorough investigation."

"What is crucial is that the work of the fact-finding committee is transparent and includes any new violations against minorities in the coastal area and other parts of Syria," she told Reuters.

But others expressed concern, including Alawite residents of the coastal province of Latakia, where much of the violence took place.

Firas, a 43-year-old Alawite who only gave his first name out of fear of retribution, said the extension was an attempt to "stall and buy more time" and that he felt little hope the committee's work would lead to real accountability.

The Alawites are the second-largest religious group in Syria after Sunni Muslims. Their faith is an offshoot Shiite Islam.