The combatants who rose with the new Government of Syria broke into three villages near the country's coast, killing dozens of men in response to the recent attacks on government security forces by the loyal of the president of the expelled president Bashar Assad, a war monitor said.
The assaults of the town exploded on Thursday and continued on Friday. The ongoing clashes between the two parties have marked the worst violence since the Assad government was demolished in early December by insurgent groups led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham. The new government has pledged to unite Syria after 14 years of civil war.
Almost 200 people have been killed since the fight broke out, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights based in Britain. In addition to 69 dead in the villages, the dead include at least 50 members of the government forces of Syria and 45 loyal combatants to Assad. The civil war that has been in Syria since March 2011 has left more than half a million people dead and millions displaced.
The most recent clashes began when government forces tried to stop a person sought near Jableh's coastal city on Thursday and were ambushed by Assad's loyal, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights based in Britain.
On Thursday and Friday, armed men loyal to the new government broke into the villages of Sheer, Mukhtariyeh and Haffah near the coast, killing 69 men but not damaging women, according to the observatory.
“They killed all the men they found,” said Rami Abdurrahman Observatory.
Al-Mayadeen TV, based in Beirut, also reported attacks on the three villages, saying that more than 30 men were killed only in the town of Mukhtariyeh.
The Syrian authorities did not publish a number of the dead, but the State News Agency of Syria, healthy, quoted an unidentified security official saying that numerous people went to the coast seeking revenge for the recent attacks against government security forces. The official said the actions “led some individual violations and we are working on stopping them.”
During the night, Damascus sent reinforcements to the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus and the nearby villages that house the Assad minority auite sect and constitute its support base for a long time. A curfew was in force in Latakia and other coastal areas.
Under Assad, the Alawites occupied the best positions in the army and security agencies. The new government blamed its loyal for attacks against the new security forces of the country in recent weeks. There have also been some attacks against Alauitas in recent weeks, although the new government says it will not allow collective punishment or sectarian revenge.
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Geir O. Pedersen, the special envoy of the United Nations for Syria, said in a written statement that “all parties should refrain from actions that can further inflamed tensions, increase the conflict, exacerbate the suffering of the affected communities, destabilize Syria and endanger a credible and inclusive political transition.”
Coastal peoples still under the control of Assad's loyal
Until Friday, said the Observatory, Jableh and the coastal city of Baniyas were still under the control of Assad's loyal, along with other nearby Alawite towns and the hometown of Assad de Qardaha, in the mountains with a view to Latakia.
A resident from Qardaha told Associated Press in a text message that government forces were shooting with heavy machine guns in the city's residential areas. Another said that people have not been able to leave their homes since Thursday afternoon due to the intensity of the shooting. Both talked about anonymity for fear of remuneration.
The fight could enliven more sectarian tensions
Gregory Waters, an associate member of the Institute of Middle East who has investigated the coastal areas of Syria, said he does not expect the outbreak to become sustained struggles between both sides. However, he said he was concerned that he could enliven the cycles of violence between different civil communities that live along the coast.
In addition, any violation of the security forces sent from Damascus would leave young men's most fearful men in the new government, and more prone to take weapons, Waters said.
In Damascus, a crowd met in the rain in the Umayyad square to show support to the new government.
“We have had enough long periods of wars and tragedies,” said retiree Mazen Abdelmajeed. He blamed the violence of the remains of the old regime and said that the Unit of Syria must be preserved.
“No one wants a civil war to happen,” he said. “We are not against any of the components of the Syrian people. … We are all a Syrian people. “
Syrian people ask Russia for help
Dozens of people gathered on Friday outside the main Russian air base in Syria near Jableh to ask Moscow protection. Russia joined the Syrian conflict in 2015, on the rise with Assad, although since then it has established links with the new government. Assad has been living in Moscow since Syria left in December.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a written statement that Moscow is “the closely coordinated efforts with foreign partners for a rapid reduction in the situation.”
“We reaffirm our position of principles in support of sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic,” said the statement. “We hope that all states that have influence in the situation in Syria contribute to their normalization.”
Türkiye, who supported the insurgents when Assad was still in power, warned Friday that the current fight raises a serious threat to the new government.
“Intensive efforts are underway to establish security and stability in Syria,” said the spokesman of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Oncu Keceli, in a publication about X. “In this critical situation, the orientation of security forces could undermine efforts to bring Syria to the future in unity and solidarity.”
Associated Press Omar Albam writers in Latakia, Syria; and Mariam Fam in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.
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