Scores of people were reported killed in Syria on Friday as members of the government’s security forces clashed with loyalists of deposed president Bashar al-Assad for a second day, marking the most violent episode for the country’s new leaders since the fall of the regime.
Syrian officials said the clashes began on Thursday when gunmen attacked state security forces and killed an initial 13 people in the coastal province of Latakia amid calls for an “uprising” in what is a former Assad stronghold.
More people were killed as fighting continued throughout the night, including an unknown number of civilians, according to officials in Latakia. Damascus has sent in heavy reinforcements.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said nearly 150 people had been killed, including nearly 40 members of the armed forces, 34 Assad loyalist fighters and seven civilians.
SOHR also said government forces stormed three villages near the coast in response, killing “dozens of men”.
Lebanese pro-Assad broadcaster Al Mayadeen reported attacks on the three villages, saying more than 30 men had been killed in Mukhtariyeh alone.
A video showing dozens of male bodies, some bloodied and piled in the streets, which claimed to have been filmed on Friday morning, circulated on social media.
The exact death toll remained unclear and the Financial Times could not independently verify SOHR’s figures or the video.
Several Alawite residents of the coastal cities of Banyas and Latakia told the FT they were either sheltering at home or fleeing in fear of revenge attacks, with steady gunfire and bombardment heard nearby.
In his first comments since the outbreak of clashes, Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said government forces would pursue “remnants” of the deposed regime and bring them to trial, adding that those who had assaulted civilians would be held accountable.
“We will continue to pursue the remnants of the fallen regime . . . We will bring them to a fair court, and we will continue to restrict weapons to the state, and no loose weapons will remain in Syria,” Sharaa said in a pre-recorded speech.
The escalation poses one of the most serious threats so far to Syria’s transitional government, installed in December after Islamist rebels led by Sharaa toppled the Assad regime in a lightning offensive.
Sharaa has since taken over and dismantled the security forces, including the army and police, leaving a patchwork of allied rebel factions, who fought the regime over nearly 14 years of civil war, to maintain order.
It has struggled to impose control over the coast, where many members of the same Alawite minority to which the Assads belong live. Armed Alawite gunmen have conducted sporadic attacks on state security forces, while dozens of Alawites have been killed over recent months.
This week’s fighting has threatened to destabilise a fragile peace and plunge the country further into cycles of sectarian violence.
A group calling itself the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria issued a statement, dated Thursday, vowing to bring down the government. It announced the setting up of the group and was posted around the time of the attacks. It is led by a former commander of the Assad army’s brutal Fourth Division, once led by Bashar’s brother Maher,
The group said the “jihadist” regime had failed to protect citizens and that economic and security conditions had deteriorated to new lows. “We assure our people that we are not seeking power and that our only goal is to liberate Syria,” the statement said, as it called on people from all sects and races to join.
The defence ministry sent fighters loyal to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Sharaa’s group that now runs the state, to the coast to counter the attack. Some posted videos of themselves vowing to exact revenge and kill “the pigs”, a derogatory term referring to Alawites.
By Friday afternoon, government forces had “achieved rapid field progress and reimposed control over the areas” that had come under attack, according to a defence ministry spokesman.
Curfews were declared in Tartous and Latakia, while security forces mounted combing operations in both cities and nearby mountains.
A resident of Banyas said he had seen dozens of bodies in the street near his home. “It’s a complete massacre. I was too afraid to go see if I knew any of the dead,” he said, giving his name only as Abu Ahmad for fear of reprisals.
A prominent Alawite cleric, Sheikh Shaaban Mansour, 86, was killed on Friday along with his son in the town of Salhab in Hama province, close to Latakia. Alawite activists online accused government forces of killing him. The FT could not verify the claims.
Government officials suggested they were struggling to contain revenge attacks, with large crowds heading to the coast to exact their own revenge for the attacks on state forces.
An unidentified official was quoted by the state news agency Sana as saying their actions had “led to some individual violations and we are working to stop them”.
A tense calm has held in Damascus, where security forces were patrolling the streets as a show of strength and to maintain order in Alawite neighbourhoods that surround the capital.
Hundreds of Syrians demonstrated in support of the government in the capital and other big cities.
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