Syrian forces massacred 1,500 Alawites. The chain of command led to Damascus.

LATAKIA, Syria - The young man’s heart was sliced from his chest and placed on his body. His name was No. 56 on a handwritten list of 60 dead that included his cousins, neighbors and at least six children from their coastal Syrian village.

The men who killed 25-year-old Suleiman Rashid Saad called his father from the young victim’s phone and dared him to fetch the body. It was next to the barbershop.

“His chest was wide open. They cut out his heart. They put it on top of his chest,” said his father, Rashid Saad. It was late afternoon on March 8 in the village of Al-Rusafa. The killings of Alawites were nowhere near over.

The slaughter of Suleiman Rashid Saad was part of a wave of killings by Sunni fighters in Alawite communities along Syria’s Mediterranean coast from March 7 to 9. The violence came in response to a day-old rebellion organized by former officers loyal to ousted President Bashar al-Assad that left 200 security forces dead, according to the government.