The world is following with concern the repercussions of the situation in northern Syria, where more than three million Syrian citizens are at risk of being killed daily by the Russians, the Iranians and the Syrian regime. But no one is talking about what is happening in other parts of the country, especially around the Syrian capital Damascus, in the southern regions, and in the east near the Iraqi border, where the sectarian Iranian presence has been growing, from the establishment of the Murtada Association, founded by Jamil Al-Assad the brother of Hafez Al-Assad.

The movement of coerced Shiism and the payment of money among the tribes have increased following the incursion of the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus in the name of “cultural relations” and “charitable cooperation” in exchange for Iranian support to the ruling regime in Syria. This has been tolerated by the authorities along with the concession of endowments and property and land for the benefit of Iran under the pretext that they are “mausoleums” and “tombs” belonging to the house of the Prophet (peace be upon him.) and that, therefore, they must be subject to a specialized religious authority. This is in addition to a massive amount of land and dwellings that Iran has seized from farmers and the increasing influence of the Revolutionary Guard and the organization of Hezbollah terrorists in Syria, and the large amounts of land seized in other areas of the country.

In Deir ez-Zor, more than a thousand residents of the village of Al-Hatta belonging to the Bakara clan and the Bubadran tribe have become Shiites, in addition to residents in the small villages of Al-Kasra, Al-Surah and Al-Muhsin, in exchange for monthly salaries, food and drink.

When Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that his forces were entering Syria only to protect the holy shrines, his statement was ridiculed, but it proved to be part of the “sectarian settlement” plan to change the demographic reality on the ground, and the displacement of nearly half the population of Syria. What is happening in Syria is a plan to re-engineer the new Syrian identity to be a mirror of the sectarian system that governs it, and a mirror of its most sectarian supporters.

Syrians know that there are only a few traditional holy shrines of the Shia in Syria, and that other sites that have been created from so-called “sacred” shrines are merely the sites of the sectarian settlement project of the Hezbollah terrorist organization which is more dangerous than Daesh and Al-Qaeda.