Clashes between Islamists now in power in Syria and Assad's supporters kill 6 fighters

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Clashes between Islamists who took over Syria and supporters of ousted President Bashar Assad's government killed six Islamic fighters on Wednesday and wounded others, according to a British-based war monitor.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighters were killed while trying to arrest a former official in Assad's government, accused of issuing execution orders and arbitrary rulings against thousands of prisoners. The fighters were from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which led the stunning offensive that toppled Assad earlier this month.

Syria’s transition has been surprisingly smooth but it’s only been a few weeks since Assad fled the country and his administration and forces melted away. The insurgents who ousted Assad are rooted in fundamentalist Islamist ideology, and though they have vowed to create a pluralist system, it isn’t clear how or whether they plan to share power.

Since Assad’s fall, dozens of Syrians have been killed in acts of revenge, according to activists and monitors, the vast majority of them from the minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam that Assad belongs to.

In the capital, Damascus, Alawite protesters scuffled with Sunni counter-protesters and gunshots were heard. The Associated Press could not confirm details of the shooting.

Alawite protests also took place along the coast of Syria, in the city of Homs and the Hama countryside. Some called for the release of soldiers from the former Syrian army now imprisoned by the HTS. At least one protestor was killed and five were wounded in Homs by HTS forces suppressing the demonstration, said the Syrian Observatory. In response to the protests, HTS imposed a curfew from 6 pm until 8am.

The Alawite protests were apparently in part sparked by an online video showing the burning of an Alawite shrine. The interim authorities insisted the video was old and not a recent incident.

Sectarian violence has erupted in bursts since Assad's ouster but nothing close to the level feared after nearly 14 years of civil war that killed an estimated half-million people. The war fractured Syria, creating millions of refugees and displacing tens of thousands throughout the country.

This week, some Syrians who were forcibly displaced, started trickling home, trying to rebuild their lives. Shocked by the devastation, many found that little remains of their houses.

In the northwestern Idlib region, residents were repairing shops and sealing damaged windows on Tuesday, trying to bring back a sense of normalcy.

The city of Idlib and much of the surrounding province has for years been under control of the HTS, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, once aligned with al-Qaida, but has been the scene of relentless attacks by the government forces.

Hajjah Zakia Daemessaid, who was forcibly displaced during the war, said coming back to her house in the Idlib countryside was bitter-sweet.

“My husband and I spent 43 years of hard work saving money to build our home, only to find that all of it has gone to waste,” said the 62-year-old.

In the dusty neighborhoods, cars drove by with luggage strapped on top. People stood idly on the streets or sat in empty coffee shops.

In Damascus, Syria's new authorities raided warehouses on Wednesday, confiscating drugs such as the banned stimulant Captagon and cannabis, which were used by Assad's forces. A million Captagon pills and hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of cannabis were set ablaze, the interim authorities said.

Albam reported from Damascus, Syria, and Alsayed from Idlib, Syria.

Follow AP’s Syria coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/syria

Security forces of the new Syrian government secure the area around group of Alawite protesters in the Mazzeh district in Damascus Wednesday Dec. 25, 2024. The minority Alawite community is an offshoot of Shiite Islam that form President Bashar Assad belongs to. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Syrian fighters gather during the night on a street in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Syrian rebel fighters shout slogans against the late Assad regime in the Mazzeh district in Damascus Wednesday Dec. 25, 2024 (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

A banner with an image depicting the ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad is placed on the fire as a Syrian member of the rebel forces destroys drugs and alcoholic beverages, found at a complex building, in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

In this photo released by the official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. A portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini hangs at right. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

FILE - Lebanese Druse leader Walid Jumblatt speaks to the media after a meeting with France's President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

Women look at photos of people reported to be missing by members of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad's army, or a pro-government militia, in the Marjeh square in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Hanaa, center, and her mother Khawla, left, who are searching for any information about her brother Hussam al-Khodr, look at photos of people reported to be missing by members of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad's army, or a pro-government militia, in the Marjeh square in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. According to Hanaa, her brother was a soldier and went missing in 2014. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

People look at photos of people reported to be missing, by members of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad's army or a pro-government militia, as others sit to smoke and drink tea at the Marjeh square in Damascus, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

LOS LLANITOS, México (AP) — On a dirt field on Mexico’s Pacific coast, five cousins between the ages of 8 and 13 strip down and kick off their shoes. Nearby, adults help them fasten the pre-Hispanic-style “fajado,” securing loincloths and leather belts that wrap around their hips.

The Osuna children grab the rubber ball, all 3.2 kilograms of it — around 7 pounds or seven times heavier than a soccer ball — and begin playing. Only the hips may touch it, forcing players to leap through the air or dive low when it skims the ground.

As Mexico prepares to co-host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the nation is looking back 3,400 years to one of the oldest team sports: the ancient ballgame known as ulama, a ritual practice nearly erased during the Spanish conquest that survived only in the remote pockets of northwestern Mexico before its late 20th-century rebirth. Today, authorities and its modern players are leveraging the momentum of international soccer to shine a spotlight on the ancient sport once again.

While players acknowledge that tourism fueled the sport’s revival, many worry that projecting an “exotic” image undermines a tradition central to their identity.

“We must rid the game of the notion that it is a living fossil,” said Emilie Carreón, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM, and director of a project aimed at studying and practicing the sport.

That's exactly what the Osuna family is trying to do. After ulama player Aurelio Osuna died, his widow, María Herrera, 53, continued his legacy, teaching the ballgame to their grandchildren in their small village in Sinaloa, 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) northwest of Mexico City.

“This seed will bear fruit someday,” she said.

According to the Popol Vuh, the sacred Mayan book, the world was created from a ballgame, where light and darkness clashed to balance life and death and set the universe in motion.

Long before the Maya, the Olmecs — the earliest known Mesoamerican civilization — practiced the sport; the recreation of this clash of opposing forces was common in various pre-Hispanic cultures. The evidence is in millennial rubber balls unearthed in Mexico and in nearly 2,000 ball courts found from Nicaragua to Arizona.

The game, depicted in codices, stone carvings and sculptures, had many variations and meanings, from fertility or war ceremonies, to political acts and even sacrifices.

While some players were beheaded — possibly the losers — Guatemalan archaeologist and anthropologist Carlos Navarrete explained this occurred only during specific periods and in certain regions. The physically demanding game was primarily a big social event, drawing crowds for fun and betting.

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés was impressed by the spectacle presented by the Aztec emperor Moctezuma but the Spanish ultimately banned ulama and ordered the destruction of its courts, likely viewing the tradition as a form of resistance to Christianity. For the Catholic Church “the ball was the living devil,” Carreón said.

The game — played by hitting the ball with the hip, the forearm or a mallet — survived only on the Mexican northern Pacific coast, where the colonial process led by Jesuit priests was less aggressive and ulama was accepted in Catholic festivities, said Manuel Aguilar Moreno, a professor of art history at California State University.

On the opening day of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, spectators watched as burly men contorted their bodies in unexpected ways to keep the rubber ball moving for as long as possible. The exhibition sparked studies about the ballgame and how to preserve it in the following decades.

Luis Aurelio Osuna, 30, Herrera’s eldest son, began playing hip ulama after school, just as his father did decades ago in Los Llanitos, a ranch next to the port city of Mazatlán. Now his three children also play.

Osuna and his mother teach the children how to hit the ball and guide them through the complicated rules, which include a scoring system with points that are won and lost.

They do it out of passion, but also out of pragmatism in a state where organized crime is pervasive.

“We need to find a way to keep them entertained with good things,” said Osuna.

Hip ulama teams have up to six players and the Osuna family sometimes participates in tournaments or exhibitions.

Decades ago, matches were big events tied to religious feasts, sometimes stretching on for an entire week. But those days are gone, as interest waned and rubber balls became hard to get.

In the 1980s, filmmaker Roberto Rochín documented the work of perhaps the last rubber ball-maker in the mountains of Sinaloa. The artisan made them similar to the Olmecs, who discovered that mixing hot rubber sap with a plant created a strong, elastic and durable material. This civilization made some of the oldest balls of the world.

During the 1990s, staff from a resort in the Mexican Caribbean traveled across the country in search of Sinaloan families who could represent the ballgame as a tourist attraction in the Riviera Maya, where no one played it anymore.

“It’s pure spectacle: they paint their faces and put on feathered costumes,” Herrera said. Yet, she acknowledges the value. “That’s where the revival began.”

The ballgame began to spread and to be known outside Mexico. Osuna, with the family team his father had formed, ended up playing hip ulama in a Roman amphitheater in Italy. It attracted so much attention that they were hired for a deodorant commercial, he said.

As the World Cup approaches, authorities and corporations are launching exhibitions in Mexico City and Guadalajara, and featuring ulama players in ad campaigns highlighting Mexican heritage — a move that has sparked mixed feelings.

“We’re not circus monkeys,” says Ángel Ortega, a 21-year-old ulama player from Mexico City who recently participated in a TV commercial alongside football players.

Ilse Sil, a player and member of the UNAM project led by Carreón, believes that institutional support will help to preserve ulama but officials need to promote the game in communities and schools to recruit more young players, as it remains a marginal sport with approximately 1,000 players mainly in México and Guatemala.

In Los Llanitos, Herrera’s grandchildren love playing. They don't care where — in the dirt field, in a court or even in the house corridor — but always with the precious inheritance: a handmade decades-old rubber ball from the mountains of Sinaloa. They say it cushions the blows better.

Eight-year-old Kiki is the most enthusiastic. He says he is determined to keep practicing until he fulfills the dream of leading a team of his own.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Juan Osuna plays ulama, a traditional Mesoamerican ballgame dating to pre-Hispanic times, in Los Llanitos on the outskirts of Mazatlan, Mexico, Saturday, April 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

The Osuna family poses for a photo before a match of ulama, a traditional Mesoamerican ballgame dating to pre-Hispanic times, that they organized in Los Llanitos on the outskirts of Mazatlan, Mexico, Saturday, April 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Iker Salgueido plays ulama, a traditional Mesoamerican ballgame dating to pre-Hispanic times, in Los Llanitos on the outskirts of Mazatlan, Mexico, Saturday, April 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Iker Salgueiro stands still as an adult fastens a pre-Hispanic-style “fajado,” or leather belt, in preparation for ulama, a traditional Mesoamerican ballgame dating to pre-Hispanic times, in Los Llanitos on the outskirts of Mazatlan, Mexico, Saturday, April 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Youth play ulama, a traditional Mesoamerican ballgame dating to pre-Hispanic times, in Los Llanitos on the outskirts of Mazatlan, Mexico, Saturday, April 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)