DAMASCUS: Gunmen and security forces linked to Syria’s new Islamist rulers have killed more than 340 people, including women and children from the Alawite minority, in the country’s coastal region since Thursday, the head of a war monitor said.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the widespread killings in Jableh, Baniyas and surrounding areas in Syria’s Alawite heartland amounted to the worst violence for years in a 13-year-old civil conflict.
The new ruling authority on Thursday began a crackdown on what it said was a nascent insurgency after deadly ambushes by militants linked to former president Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Several dozen members of the security forces have been killed in heavy clashes with militants, a Syrian security official said.
Officials have acknowledged violations during the operation, which they have blamed on unorganized masses of civilians and fighters who sought to support official security forces or commit crimes amid the chaos of the fighting.
A defence ministry source on Saturday told state media that all roads leading to the coast had been blocked to stop violations and help return calm, with security forces deploying in streets of coastal cities.
The source added that an emergency committee set up to monitor violations would refer anyone found not to have obeyed the orders of the military command to a military court.
The reported scale of the violence, which includes reports of an execution-style killing of dozens of Alawite men in one village, puts into further question the Islamist ruling authority’s ability to govern in an inclusive manner, which Western and Arab capitals have said is a key concern.
Assad was overthrown last December after decades of dynastic rule by his family marked by severe repression and a devastating civil war.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed Sharaa, while backing the crackdown in a televised address late on Friday, said security forces should not allow anyone to “exaggerate in their response… because what differentiates us from our enemy is our commitment to our values.”
“When we give up on our morals, us and our enemy end up on the same side,” he said, adding that civilians and captives should not be mistreated.
