Fighting between Syrian security troops under the nation’s new, Islamist government and pro-Assad gunmen in Syria’s western coastal province has killed over 70 individuals. A monitor of the war in Syria reports that pro-government gunmen have overrun three villages close to Syria’s coast, killing close to 70 men.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in Britain reports that the killings took place on Friday in the villages of Sheer, Mukhtariyeh and Haffah. They executed all men they found,” said the head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, referring to the attackers who executed residents who are part of the country’s minority Alawite sect of former President Bashar Assad.
The gunmen shot and killed 69 men and fled without harming women and children in the three villages, said Abdurrahman. The Beirut-based television station Al-Mayadeen said over 30 men were slaughtered in the village of Mukhtariyeh after they had been separated from women and children. It added that others had been shot in Sheer and Haffah.
State news agency SANA cited an unnamed security official to say that following attacks by former president Bashar Assad’s loyal forces that killed policemen, large numbers of people rushed to coastal areas “in what resulted in some individual violations and we are trying to stop them.”
The new deaths bring to 147 the number of individuals who have been killed since fighting between government troops and Assad loyalists erupted on Thursday.
Fighting between Syrian security forces loyal to the nation’s new, Islamist government and pro-Assad gunmen in Syria’s coastal western region killed over 70 individuals and rendered an area beyond government control war monitor stated on Friday.
The battles, which broke out on Thursday and seem to be coordinated along the coastal area, were a significant escalation and a test for the new government in Damascus, where the former rebels now in power have vowed to reunify Syria after 14 years of devastating civil war.
Damascus dispatched reinforcements overnight to the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartus, surrounding towns and villages — the Alawite minority sect’s stronghold and Assad’s long-time source of support, attempting to get the situation under control, state media said.
