[Zhang Fei]

A bizarre video dating back to the 1980s shows a platoon of female soldiers biting the heads off live snakes at a military parade in front of Assad’s father and predecessor, President Hafez al-Assad. The women then don aprons, barbecue the snakes and eat them.

Muslims are forbidden to eat snakes. Along with a pantheon of Alawite saints that includes Plato and Aristotle, along with the Alawite profession of faith (there is no God but Ali*) I'd say this dietary practice suggests Alawites are fringe Muslims, if they're Muslims at all.

* Muslims worship Allah, not Ali. Imagine someone who called himself a Christian because he worshiped Joseph Smith.

[cunning_fish]

I don’t think if both Assad and his dad are about to give a rat’s ass about islam and that is forbidden there.

They are Baathists. Aren’t they?