More than 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, were killed in the two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and fighters loyal to the former Assad regime and subsequent revenge killings, according to a war monitor.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, said 745 civilians were killed mostly execution-style, while 125 Syrian security forces and 148 Assad loyalists were killed, one of the highest death tolls in Syria since 2011, The Guardian.
Death tolls from the two days of fighting have varied wildly, with some estimates putting the final death toll even higher.
Fighting began on Thursday after fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime ambushed security forces in Jableh, in the coastal Latakia province.
The wide-ranging, coordinated assault was the biggest challenge to the country’s Islamist authorities so far, and came three months after opposition fighters led by Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.
To crush the rebellion, the Syrian government called for re-enforcements, with thousands of fighters converging on Syria’s coast from all over the country. Though fighters are nominally under the auspices of the new Syrian government, militias still persist, some of which have been implicated in past human rights abuses and are relatively undisciplined.
The Syrian government has insisted that “individual actions” led to the killing of civilians and said the massive influx of fighters on the coast led to human rights violations. In a speech on Friday, Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa said that “anyone who harms civilians will face severe punishment.”
Videos showed dozens of people in civilian clothes piled up, dead, in the town of al-Mukhtariya, where more than 40 people were killed at one time, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Other videos showed fighters wearing security uniforms executing people point blank, ordering men to bark like dogs and beating captives.
The Guardian was not able to independently verify these videos.
The Syrian coast is heavily populated by the minority Islamic Alawite sect, from which the deposed Syrian president hailed, though most Alawites were not associated with the Assad regime.
Syria’s new authorities promised Alawites that they would be safe under their rule and that there would be no revenge killings. Government security forces’ killings of hundreds of mainly Alawite civilians this week, however, have sent waves of fear through the religious minority community.
Syria’s current transitional authorities are set to announce a new government this month, which will be scrutinised closely for being representative of Syria’s religious and ethnic diversity after this week’s violence.
Bd-pratidin English/FNC
