Fierce fighting between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to deposed ruler Bashar Assad killed 48 people on Thursday, a war monitor said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes in the coastal town of Jableh and adjacent villages were “the most violent attacks against the new authorities since Assad was toppled” in December.
Pro-Assad fighters killed 16 security personnel while 28 fighters “loyal” to ousted President Bashar Assad and four civilians were also killed, it said.
The fighting struck in the Mediterranean coastal province of Latakia, the heartland of the ousted president’s Alawite minority who were considered bastions of support during his rule.
Mustafa Kneifati, a security official in Latakia, said that in “a well-planned and premeditated attack, several groups of Assad militia remnants attacked our positions and checkpoints, targeting many of our patrols in the Jableh area.”
He added that the attacks resulted in “numerous martyrs and injured among our forces” but did not give a figure.
Kneifati said security forces would “work to eliminate their presence.” “We will restore stability to the region and protect the property of our people,” he declared.
The UK-based observatory said most of the security personnel killed were from the former rebel bastion of Idlib in the northwest.
During the operation, security forces captured and arrested a former head of air force intelligence, one of the Assad family’s most trusted security agencies, state news agency SANA reported.
“Our forces in the city of Jableh managed to arrest the criminal General Ibrahim Huweija,” SANA said.
“He is accused of hundreds of assassinations during the era of the criminal Hafez Assad,” Bashar Assad’s father and predecessor.
Huweija, who headed air force intelligence from 1987 to 2002, has long been a suspect in the 1977 murder of Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Bek Jumblatt.
His son and successor Walid Jumblatt retweeted the news of his arrest with the comment: “Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest).”
The provincial security director said security forces clashed with gunmen loyal to an Assad-era special forces commander in another village in Latakia, after authorities reportedly launched helicopter strikes.
“The armed groups that our security forces were clashing with in the Latakia countryside were affiliated with the war criminal Suhail Al-Hassan,” the security director told SANA.
Nicknamed “The Tiger,” Hassan led the country’s special forces and was frequently described as Assad’s “favorite soldier.” He was responsible for key military advances by the Assad government in 2015.
Source: Arab News
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful hoque
