The spiritual leader of Syria’s Alawite community has called for massive nationwide demonstrations on Sunday to demand political federalism and protest ongoing violence against the minority sect, a day after a deadly explosion targeted an Alawite mosque in Homs.

Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Supreme Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and Abroad, issued the rallying cry in a video message on Saturday. He framed the protests as a peaceful response to what he described as a systematic campaign of violence and exclusion by the interim government in Damascus.

“Tomorrow will be a peaceful human flood filling the squares,” Ghazal stated. “We do not want a civil war. We want political federalism. We do not want your terrorism. We want our right to self-determination.”

The call comes in direct response to Friday’s explosion at the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque in Homs’s Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood. Syrian state media reported the blast killed at least eight people and wounded 20. The militant group Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, a radical Sunni Islamist faction, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was conducted with allied jihadists.

Ghazal’s appeal highlights the deepening sectarian and political fractures in Syria since the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad by the jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has since dissolved. The current interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former HTS leader, has faced mounting criticism over centralized governance perceived as Islamist and exclusionary.

In March, Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration emphasizing Islamic jurisprudence, drawing sharp backlash from Alawite, Christian, Druze, and Kurdish communities who saw it as marginalizing their rights.

“What we are experiencing today is not a passing incident or blind chaos, but a systematic war of extermination practiced against us in full view and hearing of the world,” Ghazal said, accusing the Damascus authority of committing crimes against Alawites. “We are killed in places of worship. We are slaughtered in our homes.”

Calls for decentralization or federalism have intensified among Alawites, Druze, and Kurds following recent violent episodes. These include clashes in the Druze-majority Suwayda province in July that left nearly 800 dead and fighting in Alawite-majority coastal regions in March that monitors say killed nearly 2,000, with Damascus forces blamed for many civilian deaths.

Ghazal also appealed for international intervention, warning that “silence about these crimes means nothing but more killing and more collapse,” and called for “radical, genuine, and swift solutions,” including “international protection.”

This is not the first such mobilization. In November, Ghazal called for similar protests in coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces and parts of Hama and Homs, where demonstrators demanded federalism, decentralization, the release of detainees, and an end to anti-minority violence.

In response to that earlier wave, Syria’s interior ministry warned against “schemes” to sow discord and sectarian rhetoric, stating that security forces had been deployed to protect demonstrations.

Protesters are expected to gather from noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, in a test of both Alawite mobilization and the interim government’s tolerance for dissent.