Violence between government security forces and gunmen loyal to the ousted regime of President Bashar al-Assad has erupted in Syria’s coastal region.
Over 1,300 people have died in days of clashes, many of them civilians killed by government forces, according to a war monitor. The accusations could not be independently verified.
Demonstrators came out in several cities to protest against the government’s actions while others went into the streets in support of the new government. In the coastal provinces where the clashes broke out, residents were ordered to stay indoors as security forces scrambled to contain the turmoil.
Those who emerged described shootings outside their homes and bodies in the streets , in Syria’s worst unrest since the country’s new rulers swept to power in December after a lightning offensive led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham . The violence presents a major test of the new government’s authority and ability to unify the country, which has deep sectarian divisions after more than 13 years of civil war.
Violence has broken out across Latakia and Tartus Provinces on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, the heartland of the country’s Alawite minority and once seen as a bastion of support for Mr. al-Assad. About 10 percent of Syrians belong to the sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The Assads, who governed Syria with an iron fist for more than five decades, are Alawites, and the sect dominated the ruling class and upper ranks of the military.
Since Syria’s new Islamist rulers swept to power, many Alawites have grown unnerved .
Syrians are demanding accountability for crimes committed under the Assad government, and the country’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, has pledged to hunt down and prosecute senior regime figures. Mr. al-Shara has promised stability and to safeguard the rights of ordinary Syrians from all sects. But the Alawite-dominated region has experienced low-level violence in recent months, often as a result of security forces trying to arrest former officers.
Most of the civilians killed in the recent clashes were Alawites, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has monitored the Syrian conflict since 2011.
There does not yet appear to be a single unifying force responsible for orchestrating the attacks on Syria’s western coast.
The attacks against security forces on Thursday, however, were the “first time that pro-Assad loyalist activity demonstrated clear coordination and prior planning,” according to Charles Lister, the director of the Syria and counterterrorism programs at the Middle East Institute.
On Thursday, as security forces came under attack, a group calling itself the “Military Council for the Liberation of Syria” issued a statement vowing to overthrow the country’s new leadership. The statement announced the establishment of the group, and was signed by a former general in the Assad regime’s elite Fourth Division, which was headed by Mr. al-Assad’s brother Maher al-Assad.
It remains unclear if the former general, Gaith Dalah, established this military council himself, or if the group is claiming him as their leader, according to the Institute for the Study of War. But its formation comes on the back of similar announcements by a trickle of other pro-Assad armed groups that have sprung up since the government’s fall.
Anas Khattab, the new head of Syria’s intelligence services, said in a statement on Friday that former Assad regime military leaders were behind the violence, with support from unspecified “fugitives” outside the country.
The government has cracked down hard on the unrest, pouring security forces into the coastal region amid reports by war monitors of sectarian violence carried out by fighters affiliated with or loyal to the country’s new leadership. Those forces sought to reestablish control over a few towns and villages that Assad loyalists had effectively seized between Thursday and Friday.
Mr. al-Shara urged Assad loyalists to lay down their arms, and said that the government had formed a fact-finding committee to investigate what had happened on the coast and to bring the perpetrators to justice. But it was unclear if he was acknowledging possible killings at the hands of his forces or laying the blame entirely on former regime elements.
“Everyone knows who is responsible for this disorder and plots,” Mr. al-Shara said.
The observatory said on Sunday that more that than 1,300 people had been killed amid the violence. Among the dead were nearly 1,000 civilians, most of them killed by fighters affiliated with or loyal to the new government, the observatory said on Monday. Another monitoring group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which had previously reported that government security forces had killed some 125 civilians, had not updated its casualty numbers on Sunday.
Officials with the new government rejected accusations that its security forces had committed atrocities. But they said they were committed to investigating accusations and holding anyone who had harmed civilians accountable.
Government security forces set up checkpoints along the main roads in Tartus Province over the weekend, and the observatory said that some government forces were attacking with drones, tanks and artillery on Sunday, while others were searching for armed groups affiliated with the deposed regime’s military.
Residents in a town in Tartus said armed men who appeared to be with the government had stormed into the town’s predominantly Alawite neighborhoods late on Thursday. When the sounds of gunfire subsided on Saturday afternoon, one resident emerged from his home, he said, to the horrifying sights of blood stains smeared on the pavement, stores looted, and bodies every few yards.