Iranians are predominately Shiites while Syria's ruling elite is most Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
It lies on the edge of the sweeping Alawite stronghold known as al-Sahel, Arabic for coast.
The last wave is the Alawite women, who carry off the fanciest bits of clothing.
Alawite communities increasingly fear for their safety and encourage their young men to join the militia.
Iran and Hezbollah are predominantly Shia, while Mr Assad's Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam.
Turkish officials have moved some Syrian refugees, most of them Sunni Muslims, away from Alawite-inhabited areas in Hatay.
Banias is a predominantly Sunni town on the Mediterranean, although the broader coastal area is an Alawite heartland.
The Alawite region is largely along the coast, with Latakia at its center.
Syria is a nation with a Sunni majority governed by a minority Alawite, an offshoot sect of Shia Islam.
Sectarian tensions have been high in Houla, which is overwhelmingly Sunni and is surrounded by Alawite and Shiite villages.
Syria's embattled President Bashar al-Assad has surrounded himself primarily with members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Qusair is important for the Syrian government because it links the capital, Damascus, with the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.
Moreover, there are signs of division within the Alawite community itself.
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Syrian troops have been using the Alawite villages to launch artillery attacks on Haffa, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition watchdog.
Caroline, a Christian activist who asked to be identified by only her first name, was arrested by security forces in April in Damascus while distributing chocolate Easter eggs to the children of Christian, Sunni and Alawite families displaced by the fighting in Homs.
Such a zone would reflect the separate coastal Alawite state created on and off between 1920 and 1936 when France was the colonial power in Syria, according to Osama Klaib, a Sunni lawyer from the Homs area and now a Tripoli-based member of the opposition Syrian National Council.
Regarding the chain of command, the French intelligence assessment said the section of the Syrian military responsible for filling munitions with chemical agents and for security at storage sites - "Branch 450" of the CERS - was staffed only by members of the president's minority Alawite sect and was "distinguished by a high level of loyalty to the regime".
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