Syrian leader Ahmed Sharaa called for peace on Sunday after hundreds were killed in coastal areas in the worst communal violence since the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
“We have to preserve national unity and domestic peace, we can live together,” Mr Sharaa, the interim president, said as clashes continued between forces linked to the new Islamist rulers and fighters from Mr Assad’s Alawite sect.
“Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival,” Mr Sharaa said in a circulated video, speaking at a mosque in his childhood neighbourhood of Mazzah in Damascus. “What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges.”
Syrian security sources said at least two hundred of their members were killed in the clashes with former army personnel owing allegiance to Mr Assad after co-ordinated attacks and ambushes on their forces that were waged on Thursday.
The attacks spiralled into revenge killings when thousands of armed supporters of Syria’s new leaders from across the country descended to the coastal areas to support beleaguered forces of the new administration
The authorities blamed summary executions of dozens of youths and deadly raids on homes in villages and towns inhabited by Syria’s once ruling minority on unruly armed militias who came to help the security forces and have long blamed Mr Assad’s supporters for past crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said on Saturday the two days of fighting in the Mediterranean coastal region amounted to some of the worst violence for years in a 13-year-old civil conflict.
Clashes continued overnight in several towns where armed groups fired on security forces and ambushed cars on highways leading to main towns in the coastal area, a Syrian security source told Reuters on Sunday.
[ Civilians put themselves in firing line between Turkey and northeast SyriaOpens in new window ]
More than 1,000 people have been killed in two days of clashes between gunmen and security forces, the war monitor said on Saturday.
The casualties included 745 civilians, 125 members of the Syrian security forces and 148 fighters loyal to Assad, the war monitor said.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
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 Mr Assad’s government.
Officials have acknowledged violations during the operation, which they have blamed on unorganised 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 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.
Mr 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.
Syrian Facebook on Saturday was filled with images and obituaries of people from the coastal area being mourned by family and friends who said they had been killed.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the war monitor and a leading critical voice against the Assad-led government who documented its alleged killings for more than a decade, said: “This is not about being pro or against the former Assad regime. These are sectarian massacres that aim to expel the Alawite population from their homes.” – Reuters
