Many Syrians want justice for the regime’s crimes. Others want revenge.

Bashar Abdo had just returned home last month after four years in the Syrian army when a mob of neighbors and others armed with guns and knives stormed his family’s front door and accused him of being a thug of the ousted regime.

His sisters and sister-in-law tried to stop the crowd while he hid. But people broke into the house and found Mr. Abdo, 22, in the kitchen. They stabbed him before dragging him outside, while his sister Marwa was clinging to him. There, he was shot.

Local police in the northwestern city of Idlib confirmed the story published by Mr. Abdo’s family. Video footage widely circulated on Syrian social media, and verified by The New York Times, showed the horrific scene that followed: As Ms. Abdo held his lifeless body, the neighbors continued to kick him. She begged them to stop, saying he was already dead.

One of the men shouted: “This is your fate.” Other verified video footage shows a crowd of people shouting obscenities after Mr Abdo’s body was tied by the neck to a car and dragged through the streets. It is not clear who filmed the video.

Ms. Abdo recalled those moments in an interview with The Times four days later. She vowed revenge, a sign of the growing threat of the cycle of violent revenge in the new Syria.

The country is suddenly and unexpectedly emerging from 13 years of civil war and more than five decades of rule by the Assad family, which maintained its grip on power through fear, torture and mass killing.

The killing of Mr. Abdo highlights the complex reckoning that awaits us in Syria, where wounds are still fresh and anger is close to the surface. Many Syrians want accountability Crimes committed during the civil war. Others seek revenge.

At least half a million Syrians were killed during the war, most of them in air strikes carried out by Syrian warplanes and helicopters, in prisons under torture, or in mass executions, according to Syrian human rights groups. Many people are still missing.

Officials in the new Syrian interim government, headed by the Islamist rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, are racing to establish courts and police forces to address decades of grievances. They urge citizens to be tolerant and not take matters into their own hands.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, head of the rebel coalition that ousted Assad’s government, said he would Chase and prosecution Prominent figures have committed crimes including murder, unjust imprisonment, torture and gassing, but ordinary soldiers will receive amnesty.

in Recent interviewMr. Al-Sharaa said, “Justice must be achieved through the judiciary and the law.” And not through individuals.”

“If it remains for everyone to take revenge, we will become the law of the jungle,” he said.

Some Syrians said that while Mr. Sharaa might choose to forgive, they would not. Last week, the mayor of Doumar, a suburb of Damascus, was killed by residents who accused him of reporting and arresting people under the previous government, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Mr. Abdo was a soldier – a conscript – in the Syrian army for four years. But his family said that he tried to defect twice by not returning after he was given leave for a few days. He eventually spent a month in a military prison for trying to escape, and was released when the rebels who overthrew Assad’s government took over the prison as part of their control. A lightning-fast sweep across the countryA number of family members said.

At first he was afraid to return home, but when he heard that Mr. Sharaa said that soldiers like him would be granted amnesty, he felt safe enough, his family said. Shortly after his return, the mob was at the front door.

They accused him of reporting on his neighbors, which led to their death or imprisonment. The family said they see many killers every day, but have not confronted them and are seeking to move to another neighborhood.

In response to questions about the murder, the police in Idlib, affiliated with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which has governed the province for years, said in a statement that they were investigating the murder, but that the Abdo family was “famous for its bad reputation.” Working with the system.”

But the police said that “no one has the right to assault anyone.” No one has been arrested yet.

Family members denied having any connection to the regime. They also said that if their brother had been acting as executor, he would not have returned home. They said he was just an infantryman.

“We pledged that if the government does not get justice, we will get our justice,” cried Ms. Abdo, 32, with tears streaming down her face. She pounded her fist on the carpet that she and her sisters had spent days washing to remove her brother’s blood. There was still blood in the kitchen and on some of the walls.

She added: “We will not allow his blood to be shed without a response.”

Others use whatever means they can to try to avoid the cycle of revenge.

Muhammad Al-Asmar, the media official in the new government, said that he sent a Google document to the residents of his village, Al-Qabahani, in Hama Governorate, to submit any grievances against their fellow villagers. Mr. Al-Asmar said he took the initiative after hearing that many of the people the government relied on to mistreat and intimidate Syrians had returned to their homes after Assad’s fall.

“There was no response, because people say: ‘I will get justice myself,'” he said.

However, he hopes that such an approach can be adopted at the national level to stop vigilante justice.

Officials in the new Ministry of Justice admit that they were not prepared to take over much of the country when they launched their attack on November 27. Efforts to maintain calm currently appear to come in the form of public statements or proposed speeches. For imams who call for self-restraint.

Ahmed Hilal, the new president of the court in Aleppo, said: “Frankly, we are under great pressure and there will be violations.” People angry about crimes committed during the Assad era “don’t want to wait for the courts to act – they want to take the law and justice into their own hands.”

The struggle against mob justice is uphill because in every city and town, Syrians who may be accused of committing such crimes are returning home.

When Assad’s government fell last month, Alaa al-Khatib returned to his village of Taftanaz in the countryside of Idlib Governorate. His family soon began telling people that he had evaded military service for years and then fled twice to indicate that he did not want to participate in Assad’s army.

“I know I didn’t do anything,” Al-Khatib, 25, a married father of three, said one day on the outskirts of the village, working on renovating a relative’s house that had been seized and stripped by Syrian soldiers.

Despite Mr. Khatib’s protests, he faces a cloud of suspicion. Even lowly recruits are blamed for crimes – whether it is true or not.

Salah Al-Khatib, a 67-year-old relative of Mr. Al-Khatib, who owns an agricultural produce market in the village, wasn’t sure whether he would say “hello” once he heard that his second cousin had returned to Taftanaz.

“He is my relative and I was wondering whether I should accept him or not,” he said. “Others may be thinking about revenge.”

Muhammad Haj Kadour, Yacoub Al-Rubaie and Nader Ibrahim Contributed to reports.