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Hundreds of people were killed in Syria after the clashes between pro-government and pro-assads forces have transformed sectarian violence, in what has become the greatest threat to the stability of the country since the end of the civil war last year.
Many targeted people were Alawites, members of a minority sect in which former President Bashar al-Assad belongs and who dominated the best ranks of the security forces of the old regime.
Although the estimates varied, the war was monitoring the Syrian Human Rights Observatory reported that more than 1,000 people had been killed on Sunday, the majority of them civilians. The Financial Times could not independently verify the figures.
The Syrian Ministry of Defense said that clashes were still underway in certain parts of the coast on Sunday morning.
Acting president Ahmed al-Sharaa called to CALM on Sunday. Shot speaking in a mosque of the Mezzeh district of Damascus, Sharaa said that what had happened was among the “expected challenges” and called for coexistence. “We can live together in this country, God wants it,” he said.
The turmoil began Thursday after armed factions faithful to Assad, that the Islamist rebels led by Sharaa ousted in December, clashed with government security forces and called for a “uprising” in Lataquia, a coastal province and former bastion of Assad.
This has turned into inter-municipal violence and sectarian murders when the forces faithful to the interim government arrived from outside the coastal area to crush pro-Assad forces, according to residents and rights defense groups.
Many rebel factions are now responsible for security as part of the new interim administration, which has dissolved the army of Assad, blame the Alawites, as well as old regime forces, for the atrocities that took place during the war.
The residents of Alawite told the FT that they were attacked at their homes, that parents and neighbors were killed or fled for fear of new attacks.
Anas Haidar, a Translator Allawite de Baniyas, a city south of Latakia, said he learned from his aunt that armed factions had taken his 69 -year -old uncle on the roof of his building on Friday and had executed it with other men living in the building.
“We thought that the sounds we heard were shooting in the air or celebrations, but no: all these blows were with people,” he said, adding that his uncle had been a long-standing opponent of the Assad regime.
On Saturday, when Haidar was preparing to flee, he received a call from another aunt to the supplicant to come and help his son, who was bleeding after being killed on the roof and died later. Haidar left the neighborhood in the car of a Sunni friend, who sheltered it as well as other families for the night.
High climbing has so far been one of the most serious threats to the legitimacy of the transitional government of Syria.
He also underlines the extent of the challenge he is faced with in the unification and decision of the nation, which houses several sects and flooded with arms and armed factions, including former soldiers who are unemployed for the Assad regime forces.
At the time of the initial attacks, a group called the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria published a promising declaration to drop the government. The group is led by a former commander of the fourth brutal division of Assad’s army, once led by Bashar’s brother, Maher.
In the absence of a unified national security force, Sharaa incorporated a patchwork of armed opposition factions under the aegis of the Ministry of Defense earlier this year, but coordination, training and ideology vary considerably.
Mohammad Salah Shalati, a Sunni sheikh from Latakia, said that there was a widespread frustration in the face of the perceived lack of responsibility for those who worked for the old regime.
“We said to the government,” This person or that person worked against us for the regime “. We know who they are, but they ask for proof, “he said. “The new government tells us to be patient. But the Sunnis was oppressed for 60 years. . . After March 6, people no longer want forgiveness – they want to keep everyone responsible. »»
Residents of the coastal areas that spoke to the FT underlined the difference between the behavior of what they called extremist factions and the general security forces linked to more disciplined ministry, but said that it was up to the new authorities to keep them all online.
The factions “are not illegal gangs. Technically, they are the law, the military, ”said Haidar. “These were groups that were supposed to meet Ahmed Al-Sharaa and agreed to be part of the Ministry of Defense.”
