In Turkey, Alawite sect sides with Syria's Assad This ancient pilgrimage town in southern Turkey is populated by the Alawi, adherents of a heterodox offshoot of Shia Islam, who share their faith with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian leader has filled the upper ranks of his military, security services and feared Shabiha militia with his fellow Alawites. Although Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thrown his support behind the Syrian rebels in their armed uprising against Assad, the Turkish street is revealing itself to be more divided about what is happening in Syria and along its borders. Many Turks are proud their government is giving a hand to those in need, but the main opposition leaders are warning the country is being dragged into a sectarian conflict. The business community is also rattled. Here in the Hatay Province, where Turkey's small Alawite population is centered, critics of the government's role in the 18-month conflict next door are especially vocal. "We are sure there are foreign fighters here, all the extremists and all the terrorists," said Ali Yeral, a prominent religious leader of the Alawite sect in the southern Turkish city of Antakya. "They spend the day drinking tea, and at night they cross the border to kill our relatives" in Syria. Yeral and other Alawite activists repeat stories, impossible to verify, and likely not even true, that nevertheless illustrate the level of animosity they feel about the 120,000 Syrians now living in refugee camps and rented apartments in Turkey. "We have heard them say after they get finished with the government of Assad, they will come for us and cut our heads off," Yeral said. They are Libyans, Saudis, Syrians. They are all terrorists. And they say to our girls, "I will have you in my bed and your father's villa will be mine." " In Antakya, with its large Alawite population, Turkish citizens have staged street demonstrations, their most recent on Tuesday, in support of their co-religionist Assad. The protesters are calling on the Turkish government to oust not only the 40,000 displaced Syrians living in houses across Turkey, but also to empty the 11 refugee camps strung along the Turkish-Syrian border, where another 80,000 Syrians languish in tent cities. Most of the Syrian refugees, as well as most of the Syrian rebel fighters, are Sunni Muslims. Many Alawites, like the Christians in Syria, have seen Assad as a bulwark against a Sunni Islamist takeover. Feeling the heat, the Turkish government last week quietly announced that it would begin to ask Syrians without passports to enter camps and those with passports to move away from the border. The officials promise the refugee camps will remain open and welcome those fleeing the bombing and fighting in Syria. Turkish officials said there are good reasons for the tough policy - secure borders and knowledge of who's coming and going - but Selcuk Unal, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said that "local tensions" also played a role in the decision to relocate refugees deeper into Turkey.