Syria’s new government has formed a committee to investigate reported mass revenge killings of a minority group – after the United Nations human rights chief called for “swift actions”.
Violent clashes, which a war monitoring group said had already killed 1,311 people, have continued for a fourth day in deposed president Bashar al Assad‘s coastal heartland.
Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement: “The caretaker authorities’ announcements of their intention to respect the law must be followed by swift actions to protect Syrians, including by taking all necessary measures to prevent any violations and abuses and achieve accountability when these occur.”
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US secretary of state Marco Rubio also weighed in, calling on Syrian authorities to hold the “radical Islamist terrorists” responsible for the killings accountable.
He also said the US stood with the country’s religious and ethnic minorities, while the UK foreign secretary David Lammy said the violence was “horrific”.
The violence spiralled into revenge killings against Assad’s Alawite sect when thousands of armed supporters of Syria‘s new leaders from across the country descended to coastal areas to support the new administration’s forces.
Syria’s state media said the violence – some of the deadliest in 13 years of civil war – has now moved to the countryside.
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A Syrian security source said the pace of fighting had slowed around the cities of Latakia, Jabla and Baniyas, while forces searched surrounding mountainous areas where an estimated 5,000 pro-Assad insurgents were hiding. Some of these areas were attacked with artillery shells and drones, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The British-based observatory said 830 of those killed were civilians, while another 231 members of the Syrian security forces and 250 fighters loyal to Assad also died.
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of SOHR, said the civilians included Alawite women and children.
Syrian security sources said more than 300 of their members had been killed in clashes with former pro-Assad army personnel in coordinated attacks and ambushes on their forces that began on Thursday
Mr Abdulrahman said the death toll was one of the highest since a chemical weapons attack by Assad’s forces in 2013 which killed some 1,400 people in a Damascus suburb.
Syrian state news said on Sunday a mass grave had been discovered near Qardaha, Assad’s hometown, containing the bodies of recently killed security forces.
Syria’s leader Ahmed Sharaa, who faces the challenge of ruling a country fraught with factional tensions, urged Syrians not to let these strains further destabilise the country.
The Alawites are a religious minority in Syria, originating from Shia Islam. The overthrown president Bashar al Assad belonged to the sect.
They make up around 10% of Syria’s population, which is majority Sunni, and mainly live in the country’s coastal regions.
During Assad’s reign, the Alawites made up a large part of his support base and held top posts in the army and security agencies.
Since his fall from power, many Alawites were fired from their jobs and some former soldiers who reconciled with the new authorities were killed.
Civilians have now been targeted in revenge killings by Sunni Muslim militants loyal to the new government, who have blamed Assad’s loyalists for attacks against the country’s new security forces in recent weeks.
The Alawites, along with Syria’s other minority communities including Kurds, Christians and Druze, have said they are concerned about revenge attacks and are not convinced by the new government’s promise of an inclusive country.
“We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace, we can live together,” Mr Sharaa said at a mosque in Damascus.
“Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival… What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges.”
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Rebels led by Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group toppled Assad’s government in December.
Assad fled to Russia, leaving behind some of his closest advisers and supporters, while Sharaa’s group led the appointment of an interim government and took over Syria’s armed forces.
Assad’s toppling ended decades of dynastic rule by his family marked by severe repression and a devastating civil war that began as a peaceful uprising in 2011.
