The number of people was killed in Syria on Friday when members of the government’s security forces for a second day with loyalists of the deposed President Bashar al-Assad and marked the most violent episode for the new leaders in the country since the autumn of the regime.
Syrian officials said that the clashes began on Thursday when armed men attacked the security forces of state security and only 13 people in the coastal province of Latakia killed in a “uprising” in a former requirements Assad Hochburg.
According to civil servants in Latakia, more people were killed when the fights were continued all night, including an unknown number of civilians. Damascus has sent severe reinforcements.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said almost 150 people were killed, including almost 40 members of the armed forces, 34 Assad Loyalistic fighters and seven civilians.
Sohr also said that the government troops stormed near the coast in response to three villages and killed “dozens of men”.
The Lebanese Pro Assad broadcaster Al Mayadeen reported on attacks on the three villages and said that more than 30 men were killed in Mukhtariye.
A video that shows dozens of male bodies, some bloody and stacked on the streets, which claimed to have been shot on Friday morning, spread them on social media.
The exact number of fatalities remained unclear and the financial times were unable to check the sohr numbers or the video independently.
Several inhabitants of the Alawites of the coastal cities of Banya and Latakia told the FT that they either protect at home or fled for fear of revenge, with constant shots and bombing nearby.
In his first comments since the outbreak of clashes, Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa The state armed forces would pursue “remains” of the deposed regime and put them in court, and added that those who had attacked civilians would be held accountable.
“We will continue to follow the remains of the fallen regime. . . We will bring them to a fair dish and we will continue to restrict the weapons to the state, and there are no loose weapons in Syria, ”said Sharaa in a pre -drawn speech.
The escalation places one of the most serious threats so far SyriaThe transitional government was deployed in December after Islamist rebels under the direction of Sharaa overthrew the Assad regime on a lightning offensive.
Sharaa has taken over and dismantled the security forces, including the army and the police, with a patchwork by the Allied rebel fractions, which fought against the regime for almost 14 years of civil war to maintain order.
It tried to control the coast where many members of the same alawite reduction to which the Assads belong to live. Armed alawite development men have carried out sporadic attacks on the security forces of state security, while dozens of Alawites have been killed in the past few months.
The fights this week have threatened to destabilize a fragile peace and continue to dive the country in cycles of sectarian violence.
On Thursday, a group that names itself as a military council for the liberation of Syria gave the government to reduce the government. It announced the facility of the group and was published at the time of the attacks. It is led by a former commander of the brutal fourth division of the Assad Army, which was once led by Bashar’s brother Maher.
The group said that the “jihadist” gime had failed to protect the citizens and the economic and security conditions had deteriorated into new luises. “We assure our people that we are not looking for power and that our only goal is to free Syria,” says the explanation of how they asked people from all sects and races to join in.
The Ministry of Defense sent fighter loyal Hayat Tahrir al-ShamSharaa’s group, which now leads the state, to the coast to counteract the attack. Some published videos of themselves, which are giving away precise revenge and killing “The Pigs”, a derogatory term that refers to Alawites.
On Friday afternoon, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, the government troops “achieved quick progress in the field and resumed control over the areas”, which were attacked.
Stock -out blocks were declared in harmful and Latakia, while the security forces combed in both cities and in the nearby mountains.
A resident of Banyas said that he saw dozens of corpses on the street near his house. “It is a complete massacre. I was too afraid to see to see if I knew anything from the dead, ”he said and only gave his name out as Abu Ahmad, for fear of reprisals.
A prominent Alawiter, Sheikh Shaaban Mansour (86), was killed on Friday together with his son in the city of Salhab in the province of Hama near Latakia. Alawite activists online accused the government troops of killing him. The FT could not check the claims.
Government officers proposed that they had difficulty containing revenge attacks, with large crowds going to the coast in order to achieve their own revenge for the attacks on the state armed forces.
A non -identified civil servant was quoted by the state news agency Sana when he said that her actions had “led to some individual violations and we are working to stop them”.
A tense calm took place in Damascus, where the security forces patrolled on the streets as strength and maintained the order in Alawite districts that surround the capital.
Hundreds of Syrians showed the government in the capital and other large cities.
