Syria’s operation against Assad’s loyal ends after mortal violence

The Ministry of Defense of Syria says that it has completed a military operation in the western coastal region of the country, after days of violence in which hundreds of people have been killed.

The security forces had “neutralized” loyal “to former President Bashar al-Assad in several cities of Latakia and provinces in Tarrous and were” racing the way for life to return to normal, “said a spokesman for the ministry.

A monitoring group says that more than 1,400 people have been killed since Thursday, including 973 civilians.

The loyal gunmen to the government led by Sunni Islamists have been accused of carrying out revenge murders against members of the Alauita sect of Assad Minority after a mortal ambush in a security patrol.

The interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, said he will establish an independent committee to investigate the murders and insisted that the perpetrators would be responsible.

Violence is the worst in Syria since Sharaa led the rebel ray offensive that defeated Assad in December, ending 13 years of devastating civil war in which more than 600,000 people were killed and another 12 million were forced to flee their homes.

The spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Hassan Abdul Ghani, announced in X that the security operation in Latakia and Ttoous had ended after “achieving all the specified objectives.”

“Our forces have neutralized the security cells and remnants of the former regime from the town of al-mukhtareyah, The Town of Al-Mazairaa, The Area of ​​Al-Zobar, and other locations in Latakia Province, as Well As Dalia Town, Tanita Town, and Qadmous in Tartous Province In the Thwarting of Threats and Securing the Area, “He Said.

He also said that public institutions in the region could now resume their work, adding: “We are preparing for the return of normal life and working to reinforce security and stability.”

Abdul Ghani promised that security forces would also “give the Research Committee the total opportunity to discover the circumstances of these incidents, verify the facts and deliver justice to the oppressed.”

The Government launched the operation in the province of Latakia in response to a growing insurgency on the part of Assad’s loyal in recent weeks. The region is the heart of the Alauita sect, to which many of the political and military elite of the old regime belonged.

On Thursday, security staff were ambushed by armed men in the city of Jableh while trying to arrest an Assad regime official wanted. According to reports, at least 13 officers were killed.

The security forces responded by sending reinforcements to the region, who were joined by armed supporters of the government. For the next four days, they broke into many cities and towns of Alawite, where residents said they carried out murders and looting of revenge.

A widely shared video showed the bodies of at least two dozen men with civil clothing, stacked in the courtyard of a house, in Al-Mukhtareyah. In other places, combatant accounts that seek members of Alawite arose and kill entire families on the spot.

Hiba, a Alauita woman in Baniyas, told the BBC that the check -up combatants loyal to the government had attacked their neighborhood.

“Our neighbors were killed, including children. They came and took everything, gold, everything … They stole all the neighborhood cars. They even went to the supermarket and took everything from the shelves.”

“We were waiting for our turn. We did not know when we would come. We saw death, we saw people dying in front of us and now all our friends, our neighbors, have gone,” he added. “They killed innocent people in cold blood who had nothing to do with any of this.”

An alauito man whose family lives in Baniyas said in a voice message that a relative was kidnapped from his house by armed men of the Islamist group of Sharaa, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who went a door to door looking for Alauitas.

“His mother made a mistake opening the door when he did. A member of HTS shot between his legs … so she shouted,” he said. “His son … he ran to see what happened to her. When (they saw him) they took him with them and disappeared. And they didn’t return.”

He also said that the residents of the neighborhoods of Baniyas de Alawite still hid in their homes on Monday morning because they were too afraid to venture outside to see if it was safe.

The bodies of the murdered had been buried in a tomb of Mass near a sanctuary on the outskirts of the city, while those who were kidnapped had not yet returned, he added.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a monitoring group based in the United Kingdom, reported that more than 1,450 people have been killed in the provinces of Latakia, Ttoous, Hama and Homs.

They included 973 civilians, who, as they said, had died as a result of “murders, field executions and ethnic cleaning operations” by security personnel or pro -government combatants, as well as 231 security personnel and 250 combatants in favor of the Assad.

Security sources also told Reuters News Agency that 300 security personnel had been killed.

The BBC has not been able to verify independently the tolls of death.

The state news agency said that a massive tomb contained in the bodies of security personnel had been found in the hometown of former president of Qardaha on Sunday. Syria TV, based in Türkiye, quoted residents saying that Assad’s loyal ones had buried the police killed in the recent fighting there.

The UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said his office had received “extremely disturbing reports from whole families, including women, children and fighters of Combat, being killed.”

“There are reports of summary executions on a sectarian basis by unidentified perpetrators, by members of the security forces of the caregiver authorities, as well as by elements associated with the old government,” he added.

He demanded a rapid action of the interim authorities of Syria to protect civilians and hold those responsible for the murders and other violations that are counted.