Three days of confrontation between the fighters affiliated with the new leaders of Syria and those who are faithful to the Drown Dictator Bashar al-Assad made dozens of dead civilians, according to two war surveillance groups, which reported on Saturday that many of them had been killed by government forces.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights based in the British, which has been monitored the Syrian conflict since 2011, said more than 1,000 people had been killed in the coastal provinces of Tartuk and Latakie. This figure included around 700 civilians, the most killed by government fighters. The information could not be verified independently.
Another surveillance group, the Syrian network for human rights, reported earlier than government security forces had killed some 125 civilians. He said that men of all ages were among the victims and that the forces did not distinguish between civilians and the combatants.
Officials of the Ministry of Information, responding to the accusations of killing civilians, said they had rejected “undocumented allegations accusing government forces of having committed violations”. But they also said that the government was determined to conduct full investigations and would like to explain those who injured civilians.
“The Syrian government confirms that its forces operate according to strict standards that respect international humanitarian law and wish to protect civilians during their operations,” said a statement from the ministry.
The observatory said that most of the civilians killed came from the country’s alawish religious minority, to which Mr. Al-Assad belongs, but that could not be checked independently. The surveillance group said dozens of combatants on both sides of the conflict had also been killed.
The Syrian Human Rights network said that Loyalists of Assad had killed more than 100 security forces for the new government.
The Ministry of Defense told Syrian state media on Saturday afternoon that the forces had regained control of most of the areas which had been taken by the former remains of regime, and that the roads leading to the coastal area had been closed “to regulate violations, prevent transgressions and gradually restore stability”.
The troubles were the bloodiest violence since the Assad regime was ousted in early December by rebels who became the new leaders of the country. It presents a major test of the authority of the new government and increased the spectrum of a larger sectarian conflict in Syria, where tensions were already raised following the civil war.
On Saturday afternoon, the Syrian red crescent was authorized to enter one of the cities to evacuate the wounded, said Haidera Younes, spokesperson for the Red Crescent Branch in Tartus.
The clashes began Thursday after the Loyalists of Assad killed 16 members of government security personnel in the province of Latakia, in the deadliest attack to date against the new security forces of Syria, according to government officials and the observatory.
Violence quickly spread in the provinces of Latakie and Tartus, longtime bastions of Mr. Al-Assad along the Mediterranean coast and housing most of the country’s Alawites. The armed remains of the ousted regime would be dispersed in the two provinces and have shot a challenge to the new leaders of the country as they try to exercise their authority and unite a country fractured after more than 13 years of civil war.
The government responded to the initial attack on Thursday by deploying thousands of security forces and soldiers from other parts of the country to the coast. The government sought to present clashes as a legitimate authority fighting the remains of a brutal regime.
For the first time, the new government forces deployed helicopters equipped with machine guns on Thursday around the mountain in the coastal region, according to a government official on the coast, who asked not to be appointed because he was not allowed to speak to journalists. The helicopters were deployed in areas where Loyalists armed with Assad were parked, added the manager.
A video checked by the New York Times and filmed along the coast west of Latakia airport seems to show government fighters to reuse the anti-submarine depth of Russian manufacturing by dropping them into bombs from the back of a helicopter. A Latakia government spokesman did not respond to a request for comments on the video. A Syrian state journalist Muhammad al-Oothman said that ammunition had been abandoned in mountainous areas where old remains of diet remained.
The Assad regime has led to international conviction for its frequent use of helicopters for blind attacks, abandoning improvised “barrel bombs” on civilian populations for years. The use of anti-submarine ammunition for this purpose corresponds to the model of the old regime to use everything it could make or reuse to launch air attacks via the helicopter.
The ammunition used in helicopter attacks seemed to be Russian depth accusations RBG-25, which are normally launched from ships for use against submarines, said Trevor Ball, a former technician in the US army explosion. They most likely come from the old Assad regime, he said.
“It’s a little different from how they are designed to be deployed,” said Ball. “These will not cause as much damage as the barrel bombs as the diet sews commonly used.”
Christina GoldBaum,, Muhammad Haj Kadour And Reham Mourshed Contributed reports.
