Almost 200 people have died in clashes between Syrian government forces and fighters loyal to the country’s former president Bashar al Assad, a war monitoring group has said.
Fighters backing the new Damascus regime attacked three villages near the country’s coast, killing dozens of men in retaliation for attacks on government security forces by Assad loyalists, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Friday.
SOHR said the fighting erupted on Thursday afternoon when pro-Assad militants ambushed Syrian security forces in the Latakia region, a former stronghold of the deposed leader where many of the minority Alawites who made up his support base, live.
The violence, which continued on Friday, was the worst since Assad’s government was ousted in December by rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir a -Sham.
Overnight, Damascus sent reinforcements to the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus and nearby villages.
Violence began when government forces tried to detain a wanted person near the coastal city of Jableh and were attacked by Assad loyalists, SOHR said.
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Gunmen loyal to the new government attacked the villages of Sheer, Mukhtariyeh, and Haffah near the coast, killing 69 men but harming no women, according to the observatory.
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SOHR chief Rami Abdurrahman said: “They killed every man they encountered.”
More than 30 men were killed in the village of Mukhtariyeh alone, Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV said.
In addition to those killed in the villages, the dead include at least 50 members of Syria’s government forces and 45 fighters loyal to Mr Assad, SOHR said.
An unnamed security official, quoted by Syria’s state news agency SANA, said numerous people went to the coast seeking revenge for the recent attacks on government security forces, which led to “some individual violations” that they are trying to stop.
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Large numbers of government troops were seen on Friday morning in Latakia, where some minor clashes erupted, according to security forces. The city is under curfew, along with other coastal areas.
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Since the change of regime in the country, minority Alawites have been victims of some sectarian violence.
The former insurgents now in power, and the country’s new president, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, have promised to stamp out punishment or sectarian attacks and unite Syria after 14 years of civil war.
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Geir O Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria, called on all parties to “refrain from actions that could further inflame tensions, escalate conflict, exacerbate the suffering of affected communities, destabilise Syria, and jeopardise a credible and inclusive political transition”.
