Khirbet al-Ma'zah () is a town in western

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, administratively part of the

Tartus Governorate Tartus Governorate, also transliterated as Tartous Governorate ( / ALA-LC: ''Muḥāfaẓat Ṭarṭūs''), is one of the 14 governorates of Syria. It is situated in western Syria, bordering Latakia Governorate to the north, Homs and Hama Governo ...

. It is located along the road between

Safita Safita ( '; , ''Sōpūte'') is a city in the Tartus Governorate, western Syria, located to the southeast of Tartus and to the northwest of Krak des Chevaliers. It is situated on the tops of three hills and the valleys between them, in the Syrian ...

in the east and

Tartus Tartus ( / ALA-LC: ''Ṭarṭūs''; known in the County of Tripoli as Tortosa and also transliterated from French language, French Tartous) is a major port city on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. It is the second largest port city in Syria (af ...

to the west. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Khirbet al-Ma'zah had a population of 4,798 in the 2004 census. It is the administrative center of the Khirbet al-Ma'zah Subdistrict (''

nahiyah A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...

'') which consisted of 11 localities with a collective population of 22,897. The inhabitants of the town and the subdistrict are predominantly

Alawites Alawites () are an Arab ethnoreligious group who live primarily in the Levant region in West Asia and follow Alawism, a sect of Islam that splintered from early Shia as a ''ghulat'' branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ...

, mainly from the

Kalbiyya The Kalbiyya (), or Kalbi or Kelbi tribe is one of four tribes, or tribal confederations, of the Alawite community in Syria. Appearing in historical sources from the 16th century, the Kalbiyya came to prominence when Hafez al-Assad, the son of ...

tribal confederation.

Incidents

On December 26, 2024, former Syrian major general

Mohammad Kanjo Hassan Mohammed Kanjo Hassan (; born ) is a Syrian former major general who served as head of Syria's military field court and chief of military justice across Syria. Kanjo Hassan would sentence people to Sednaya Prison, earning him the nickname "the ...

was found hiding in a hole in Khirbet al-Ma'zah, he was

arrested An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be Interroga ...

along with 20 of his loyalists.

Sources

References

Populated places in Tartus District Towns in Syria Alawite communities in Syria {{TartusSY-geo-stub