Jihadists are murdering, raping, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and, in some instances, burning people alive — across Africa, and now in Syria. Recent videos posted on X show that Syrian Islamists are doing to Alawites what Hamas did to Jews living near Gaza. Christians, Druze and Yazidis in Syria — like their non-Muslim or non-Arabized counterparts in Africa— fear they may be next.

The al-Qaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists, led by Ahmed Hussein al Sharaa, who conquered Damascus in December 2024, are going from door to door in western Syria and massacring religious minorities in cruel, sadistic ways. Social media posts show Alawite men, women and children shot at close range. According to Greek Member of European Parliament Nikolas Farantouris, who recently visited Syria, "Reliable data indicate 7,000 massacres of Christians and Alawites and unprecedented atrocities against civilians." The death toll is still rising.

Syria is just the most recent country targeted by Islamic jihadists. For years now, in at least 12 countries in Africa, jihad has been spreading. Local jihadist organizations go by different names, but the ideology that drives them is the same: Every one of them deeply believes that Allah wants him to wipe the world clean of the kuffar (infidels). In Nigeria, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Niger, Somalia, Mozambique and Libya, among others, Islamic militants massacre civilians, the vast majority of whom are Christians, leading to widespread terror, insecurity and displacement.

More than 16.2 million Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa have been driven from their homes by jihadi violence and conflict, reports the human rights organization Open Doors. Such violence includes murder, physical injury, rape, abduction, theft of property and destruction of homes and farmland. Christians are being dispossessed of their land and means of livelihood. Millions of them now live in displaced-persons camps. Women and girls are abducted, forced into "marriage," forced to convert to Islam, raped, and subjected to forced labor. Several girls have been forced to act as suicide bombers or human shields at the hands of jihadis.