Syria: Hundreds killed as reprisals over pro-Assad attacks spiral into massacres
Syria’s interim president has called for calm after the deadliest scenes of violence since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December.
Over the past two days, more than 1,000 people were killed in Syria’s coastal region, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
It started on Thursday, when supporters of overthrown autocrat Assad coordinated a number of attacks and ambushes on Syrian security forces. The fighters belonged to Assad’s Alawite sect.
Security forces, backed by allied armed groups, responded with deadly raids in Latakia and Tartous. According to multiple media reports and testimonies, the violence spread into revenge killings.
An eyewitness near the Datour neighbourhood of Latakia, who did not wish to give her real name, said that armed men went from house-to-house.
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“My friend’s fiance from Baniyas was shot. They didn’t let anyone help him, so he died from the bleeding. They still haven’t been able to bury him,” the eyewitness told Middle East Eye.
“My aunt, in the village of Bustan al-Basha, all her neighbours were killed.”
'Anyone who tries to leave or looks suspicious gets killed'
- eyewitness, Latakia
The eyewitness said that the men, claiming to be from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), searched their home too. A total of 20 cars were taken from the neighbourhood.
However, she said that they were not HTS fighters, but “terrorist groups”.
“Anyone who tries to leave or looks suspicious gets killed.”
Some civilians managed to flee to Latakia’s Russian-run Hmeimim airbase, but armed groups were waiting for them at checkpoints.
“The first question asked at the checkpoints is whether we are Alawite,” said the eyewitness.
'They found bodies in the fields'
At least 745 Alawite civilians were killed in Latakia and Tartous over three days, SOHR reported, in addition to 148 pro-Assad fighters.
Around 125 members of the new Syrian government’s forces were also killed, the UK-based war monitor said.
'What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges'
- Ahmed al-Sharaa, interim president
"We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace, we can live together," Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, said on Sunday, as violence entered a fourth day.
"Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival," he said at a mosque in the Mazzah neighbourhood of Damascus, where he grew up.
“What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges.”
Sharaa said that anyone who had targeted civilians during the raids would be held accountable.
Another eyewitness, who also did not give her name for security reasons, is from Latakia but currently lives in Germany. Her family lives in Baniyas, in Tartous.
“I almost lost them, but now they’ve moved to Parmaya, where they found bodies in the fields,” she told MEE.
“They killed my aunt’s friend in her house, a girl named Zina. They burned two of our houses. Thank God, both families were hiding.”
The eyewitness said armed fighters stormed the village of Farsh Kabieh in Baniyeh, targeting unarmed civilians from specific households.
She said a house where generations of a local family, known by the surname Ali, had gathered was raided on Friday.
“They shot a girl’s leg and her brother and husband. To this day, their bodies have not been buried.”
The violent clashes continued into Sunday, with a defence ministry official telling the official Sana news agency that fighting was taking place in the village of Betannita in the Tartous countryside.
Elsewhere, a cable linking the cities of Daraa and Damascus was deliberately damaged, leading to telecommunications and internet being cut in Daraa and Sweida.
The attack was part of several hit-and-run attacks on utilities staged by Assad loyalists.
Several water pumping stations and fuel depots were targeted.
Sana reported clashes at Banias gas power plant, following an attack by “remnants of the former regime”.
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