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Syrian security forces have battled Assad regime loyalists on Syria’s coast for a second day, as the country’s new government struggled to contain the biggest rebellion to its rule since it took power in December.
Fighters loyal to the ousted Assad government ambushed Syrian security forces in a coordinated attack on Thursday afternoon in the countryside of Latakia province, a former stronghold of the deposed leader where many of Syria’s minority Alawite Islamic sect live.
The former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on 8 December after a lightning offensive by the Islamist rebel group.
The two-day, coordinated attack was unprecedented in its scale and is a marked escalation by loyalists to the former government against Syria’s new Islamist-led government.
About 70 fighters were killed in the clashes, including 20 government security officers, according to a government-aligned Syria TV, though other war monitors suggested a higher number of dead.
Dozens of Alawite civilians were also allegedly killed by fighters aligned with the government in Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.
A video showed piles of people in civilian clothes lying on the ground dead while women wailed in the town of al-Mukhtariya in Latakia. Another showed men forced to crawl on their hands and knees being executed by gunmen. Neither of the videos could be verified by the Guardian.
Syria’s interior ministry said some “individual violations” had taken place as a result of people heading towards the villages being attacked by Assad loyalists, but did not claim responsibility for the alleged executions. “We are working to put a stop to these violations that do not represent the Syrian people as a whole,” an interior ministry source told Syria’s state broadcaster.
Thursday’s attack comes as the new government in Damascus struggles to consolidate its grip over the country. An Israeli incursion in south-east Syria, as well as an economic malaise perpetuated by western sanctions, threaten to undermine the fledgling authority’s rule.
The attack began in the town of Jableh, Latakia, on Thursday but soon spread to other areas. Gunmen cut off roads in the countryside and seized control of areas in the towns of Qardaha and Baniyas.
A video released by a former Assad regime officer shortly after the operation began called on Syria’s various sects to rise up against the government in Damascus in what it dubbed operation “coastal shield”.
Lengthy military columns of security officers and militias loyal to the government in Damascus quickly started heading towards Latakia from across Syria to quell the rebellion. Government forces began to carry out “combing operations” to catch gunmen, pounding the countryside of Latakia with artillery, helicopter gunships and drone strikes.
A curfew was established on the coast provinces and in Homs province, with residents instructed not to leave their homes until 9am on Saturday.
“Civilians are being killed two blocks down from me. The fights are becoming bigger, I have no clue what’s going to happen,” said a resident of Jableh over the phone while sheltering in their home on Friday.
Saudi Arabia condemned what it described as “crimes” by “outlaw groups” and reaffirmed its backing for the new authorities.
Syria’s coast is populated by Alawites, the same sect from which the Assad family hailed, though most of the sect had no relation to the former regime. Mutual suspicion between Alawites in the coastal region and the new rulers of Syria has persisted since the toppling of the Assad regime.
Despite assurances that minorities, including Alawites, would be safe in the new Syria, Alawite communities have been subject to a number of revenge killings since December.
In one case, on 31 January in the town of Arza, in Homs province, eight men were asked if they were Alawite and then executed with a bullet to the head.
Syria’s new rulers have said the killings were “individual cases” committed by individuals and groups unaffiliated with the government in Damascus, but that has done little to quell the growing fears of Alawites.
The new Syrian authorities have come under criticism for not being inclusive enough of Syria’s religious diversity and its vast civil society. A transitional government is to be announced in the coming weeks, the makeup of which will be a key test for the new rulers of Syria’s commitment to pluralism.
