BREITBART -- Hundreds of Christians marched through the streets of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the burning of a Christmas tree in a village in central Syria.

Christians have been highly skeptical of promises to protect all religious minorities made by the Islamist rebel leaders who overthrew dictator Bashar Assad.

The protests were sparked by a social media video of hooded men setting fire to a Christmas tree in the Christian town of Suqaylabiyah, located near Hama in central Syria. 

The Islamist group that led the drive to overthrow dictator Bashar Assad earlier this month, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), told Suquaylabiyah residents the fighters who burned the Christmas tree were “not Syrians.” 

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported the vandals were indeed foreigners, members of a minor Islamist rebel group called Ansar al-Tawhid. The group was formed in 2018 from the remnants of an ISIS-aligned group called Jund al-Aqsa that fought with HTS, itself the rebranded Syrian franchise of the Islamic State’s rivals in al-Qaeda. 

“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” one of the demonstrators told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

One group of protesters marching through the Kassa neighborhood of Damascus called on HTS to expel all foreign fighters from Syria. “Syria is free! Non-Syrians should leave!” they chanted.