Fighters loyal to former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 16 Syrian security personnel on Thursday in the former Assad stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, a war monitor said.
The death toll “following attacks and ambushes by gunmen loyal to Assad in the town of Jableh and its surrounding areas increased to 16 members of the security forces”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that they were “the most violent attacks against the new authorities since Assad was toppled”.
The coastal region, home to the religious minority of Alawites, which is Assad’s sect, has emerged as one of the main security challenges for the new government led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Latakia is also home to Khmeimim air base, a strategic Syrian base on the Mediterranean coast that Russia operates.
Syria’s state news agency Sana, citing a defence ministry source, on Thursday said “remnants of Assad’s militias” had attacked in several areas in a unified way. Reinforcements were on their way to the Jableh area to support security forces, it said.
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At least three of the gunmen in Jableh were killed, the Britain-based Observatory said.
The province’s security director had said earlier that Syrian forces were fighting 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 Suheil al-Hassan, who committed the most heinous massacres against the Syrian people,” the security director told Sana.
Assad’s Tiger Forces strike back
Hassan commanded an elite special mission forces division, trained and equipped by Russia. His unit was known as the Tiger Forces, a nod to its reputation for fighting ferociously. During Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) advance on Aleppo late last year, Hassan ordered Assad’s forces to “stop fighting and withdraw towards Damascus” before its fall.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported “strikes launched by Syrian helicopters on armed men in the village of Beit Ana and the surrounding forests, coinciding with artillery strikes on a neighbouring village”.
Sana reported that militias loyal to the ousted president had opened fire on “members and equipment of the defence ministry” near the village, killing one security force member and wounding two.
Al Jazeera reported that its photographer, Riad al-Hussein, was wounded in the fighting but that he was doing well.
A defence ministry source later told Sana that large military reinforcements were being deployed to the Jableh area “to support the security forces and restore stability to the area”.
Alawite leaders later called for “peaceful protests” in a statement on Facebook in response to the air strikes, which they said had targeted “the homes of civilians”.
Government rounding up Assad loyalists
Tensions erupted after residents of Beit Ana, the birthplace of Hassan, prevented security forces from arresting a person wanted for trading arms, the Observatory said.
Security forces subsequently launched a campaign in the area, resulting in fighting with gunmen, it added.
The Observatory said it could not verify the identity or affiliation of the gunmen.
Later on Thursday, large groups of young men, some bearing arms, gathered in Idlib, in support of the security forces fighting in Latakia, the Observatory said.
The tensions erupted after at least four civilians were killed during a security operation in the city of Latakia, the monitor said on Wednesday.
Security forces launched the campaign in the Daatour neighbourhood on Tuesday after an ambush by “members of the remnants of Assad militias” killed two security personnel, state media reported.
Syria’s new HTS-led government has launched extensive campaigns seeking to root out Assad loyalists from his former bastions.
The government is also under pressure in the southwest, where Israel has occupied a UN-buffer zone with commanding heights over Damascus. Israel has also sought to portray itself as a protector of Syria’s Druze, an ethno-religious minority, in a bid to deepen its foothold in Syria.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened military action to “defend” a suburb three kilometres southeast of Damascus that is home to Druze.