To understand the presence of Alawites in the Sunni/Christian city of Homs, please read the following article. in sha Allah, i will comment later on it. There are traditional Alawite lands/villages, but to the far west of the Homs countryside adjoining the Alawite mountains of Tartus http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/09825.pdf
Homs, the heartland of the Syrian Hinterland. The city on the Orentes, the resting place of Sayyiduna Khaled bin Waleed raDyAllahu ta'ala 'anhu, the Sword of Islam. I was looking into the contemporary history of this once magical place. From local accounts, it is clear that the native Muslim majority [entirely Sunni Sufi] and the Christian minority [ majority orthodox churches with minority eastern catholic ] were fiercely protecting the old city and the surrounding areas of traditional Homs from alawite or shiite settlement. The twelver shiites, being a tiny community were confined to a few villages on the Lebanese border and a few on the Lebanon to Homs highway, south west of Homs. The Alawites, though a small historic community in the city's outskirts eventually made new neighbourhoods to populate, primarily in the more open and drier eastern outskirts of the city. Their two neighbourhoods include Zahraa and Karm al Zaytoun. Newer neighbourhoods were established beyond these two on the east. So, Alawites settled New Homs. Old Homs was Sunni and Christian. However, in the recent civil war in Syria, i believe, that the Alawits and the twelver Shiites finally took their chance to take over the Sunni and Christian parts of the West, old Homs. This is their opportunity to take over land and property in the historic part of the city, a revenge of discrimination spanning centuries. And i can see that on the ground. The Christian population too was displaced by the Alawite Army, and their houses were used as barracks. They did not really have any respect for the Christians either. This Syrian civil war is a communal, sectarian war. It is a win and lose game for the 7% Alawites and the 90% Sunni and Christians.
