Fighters slow down with Syria The new government has taken over three villages near the country’s coast, killing dozens of men in response to recent attacks on government security forces by loyalists by President ousted Bashar Assad, said a war instructor.
Village assaults broke out on Thursday and continued on Friday. The current clashes between the two parties marked the worst violence since the Assad government was overthrown in early December by groups of insurgents led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham. The new government has committed to uniting Syria after 14 years of civil war.
According to the Syrian observatory based in Britain, nearly 200 people have been killed since the fighting broke out, according to the Syrian observatory based in Britain. In addition to 69 killed in the villages, the dead include at least 50 members of the Syrian government forces and 45 fighters loyal to Assad. The civil war that has raged in Syria since March 2011 left more than half a million dead and the millions displaced.
The most recent clashes began when government forces tried to hold a sought after person near the coastal city of Jableh on Thursday and were ambushed by the Loyalists of Assad, according to the Syrian Observatory based in Britain for Human Rights.
Thursday and Friday, armed men faithful to the new government stormed the villages of Pure, Mukhtariyeh and Haffah near the coast, killing 69 men but injuring any woman, according to the observatory.
“They killed all the men they met,” said the chief of the observatory Rami Abdurrahman.
Al-Mayadeen TV, based in Beirut, also reported the attacks on the three villages, saying that more than 30 men had been killed in the village of Mukhtariyeh alone.
Syrian authorities have not published a death review, but the Syrian state news agency Sana cited an unidentified security official saying that many people went to the coast, looking for revenge for recent attacks on government security forces. The official said that the actions “led to certain individual violations and that we are working on arresting them”.
During the night, Damascus sent reinforcements to the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus and neighboring villages which house the minority Allawite sect of Assad and make up its longtime support base. A curfew remained in force in latakie and in other coastal areas.
Under Assad, Alawites held the best positions in the army and security agencies. The new government has blamed its loyalists for attacks on the country’s new security forces in recent weeks. There have also been attacks against Alawites in recent weeks, although the new government does not allow collective punishment or sectarian revenge.
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Geir O. Pedersen, the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, said in a written declaration that “all parties should refrain from actions that could ignite tensions, degenerate conflicts, exacerbate the suffering of affected communities, destabilize Syria and endanger a credible and inclusive political transition.”
Coastal cities still under the control of Loyalists of Assad
Friday, said the observatory, Jableh and the coastal city of Baniyas were still under the control of the Loyalists of Assad, as well as other Alawite villages nearby and the hometown of Assad de Qardaha, in the mountains overlooking Latakia.
A resident of Qardaha told the Associated Press in a text message that government forces drew with heavy machine guns in the city’s residential areas. Another said that people had not been able to leave their homes since Thursday afternoon due to the intensity of the shooting. Both spoke under the cover of anonymity for fear of remuneration.
Fighting could stir up more sectarian tensions
Gregory Waters, associate member of the Middle East Institute who has done research on the coastal areas of Syria, said that he does not expect the escape to intensify in sustained fights between the two parties. However, he said that he feared that he could stir up the cycles of violence between different civil communities living along the coast.
In addition, any violation of the security forces sent from Damascus would leave the young men more afraid of the new government – and more inclined to take up arms, said Waters.
In Damascus, a crowd gathered in the rain in place of Omeyyad to show his support for the new government.
“We had enough long periods of wars and tragedies,” said retired Mazen Abdelmajeed. He blamed violence to the remains of the old regime and said that the unity of Syria should be preserved.
“No one wants only one civil war happens,” he said. “We are not against any of the components of the Syrian people. … We are all a Syrian people.
The Syrian people are asking for help in Russia
Dozens of people gathered outside the main Russian air base in Syria near Jableh on Friday to request the protection of Moscow. Russia joined the conflict of Syria in 2015, moving with Assad, although it has since established links with the new government. Assad has lived in Moscow since his departure from Syria in December.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in a written declaration that Moscow “closely coordinates efforts with foreign partners in the interest of a rapid de -escalation of the situation”.
“We reaffirm our position of principle in support of the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic,” said the press release. “We expect all states that have an influence on the situation in Syria contribute to its normalization.”
Turkey, which supported the insurgents when Assad was still in power, warned on Friday that current fights are a serious threat to the new government.
“Intensive efforts are underway to establish security and stability in Syria,” said the Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said in an article on X. “At this critical stage, targeting the security forces could undermine efforts to lead Syria in the future in unit and solidarity.”
The writers of the associated press Omar Albam in Lataquise, Syria; And Mariam Fam in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
