Over 1,000 people, mostly civilians, killed in two days of Syria clashes
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 government and ensuing revenge killings.
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 loyalists to the former government were killed. 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 president Bashar al-Assad government ambushed security forces of new rulers in Jableh, in the coastal Latakia Province.
The wide-ranging, coordinated assault was the biggest challenge to the country’s new authorities so far, and came three months after opposition fighters led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group toppled the Syrian president.
To crush the rebellion, the new rulers 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.
‘Expected challenges’
On Sunday, Syria’s transitional president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, said the developments were within “expected challenges” and called for national unity.
“We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace, we can live together,” he said in a video circulated by Arab media, speaking at a mosque in Damascus.
“Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival … What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges.”
Videos showed the bodies of dozens of people in civilian clothes piled up 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 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 government.
Revenge killings
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.
A man from the town of Snobar, Latakia, detailed how gunmen killed at least 14 of his neighbors who were all from the Arris family, including the execution of a 75-year-old father and his three sons in front of the family’s mother.
“After they killed the father and his boys, they asked the mother to take her gold off, or they would kill her,” said the man who was close to the family but spoke under the condition of anonymity for his safety.
Another resident of Latakia said that power and water to the area had been cut off for the past day, and that they had been sheltering in their house, scared of the militants on the streets.
‘Extremely disturbing’
The United Nations on Sunday said it was receiving “extremely disturbing” reports of entire families being killed in northwestern Syria and called for an immediate halt to the violence.
Iranian officials have warned that insecurity and instability in Syria will only benefit the Israeli regime and would cause terrorist and extremist groups taking advantage of the instable situation.
Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani said that the Israeli regime benefits from the disintegration of Syria.
Amani also warned that “organized massacre” against different Syrian groups is taking place in the Arab country, which is extremely dangerous and will have its impact in the region, especially Lebanon, in the future.