The number of deaths of two days of clashes between the security forces and the loyalists of the Syrian president who was in the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the murders of revenge that followed more than 600, said a war surveillance group on Saturday, which makes it one of the most deadly acts of violence since the start of the conflict in Syria 14 years ago.
The clashes, which broke out on Thursday, marked a major climbing of the challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after the insurgents took authority after having withdrawn Assad from power.
The government said it was responding to attacks on the remains of Assad forces and blamed “individual actions” for creeping violence.
Regning killings
The murders of revenge that started on Friday with Sunni Muslim armed men loyal to the government against the members of the Alawite minority sect of Assad are a major blow to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the faction which led the overthrow of the former government. Alawites was a large part of Assad's support base for decades.
The residents of the villages and cities of Alawite spoke to the Associated Press murders during which armed men fired on the Alawites, most of them, in the streets or at the gates of their houses. Many Alawites houses were looted and then set fire to different areas, two residents of the Syria coastal region said at the AP of their hiding places.
They asked that their names are not made public for fear of being killed, adding that thousands of people have fled to mountains neighboring safety.
Atrocities in a city
The residents of Baniyas, one of the cities most affected by violence, said that the bodies were scattered in the streets or left without being buried in the houses and on the roofs of the buildings, and nobody was able to recover them. A resident said that armed men had prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies from five of their neighbors killed on Friday at close range.
Ali Sheha, a resident of Baniyas, 57, who fled with her family and neighbors a few hours after violence broke out on Friday, said that at least 20 of her neighbors and colleagues from a neighborhood where the Alawites lived had been killed in their shops or homes.
Sheha described the attacks on “vengeance murders” of the Alawite minority for the crimes committed by the government of Assad. Other residents said that armed men included foreign fighters and militants from villages and neighboring towns.
“It was very, very bad. The bodies were on the street, “said Sheha as he was fleeing, speaking by phone almost 20 kilometers from the city.
He said that the armed men gathered less than 100 meters from his building, shooting at random on houses and residents and, in at least one incident, he knows, asked residents their identity document to check their religion and their sect before killing them. He said that armed men had also burned houses and stole cars and stolen from houses.
Triples of the number of deaths
The Syrian Observatory based in Great Britain for Human Rights, a war instructor, said that 428 Alawites had been killed in revenge attacks in more than 120 pro-Assad fighters and 89 of the security forces. The chief of the observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said that the murders of revenge stopped early on Saturday.
“It was one of the greatest massacres of the Syrian conflict,” said Abdurrahman about the Killies of Civilians Allawites.
The previous figure given by the group was more than 200 dead. No official figures have been published.
Funerals took place on Saturday afternoon for four members of the Syrian security force in the northwest of the village of Al-Janoudiya after being killed in the clashes along the Syrian coast. Dozens of people attended the funeral.
Syrian forces increased
The state news agency of Syria cited an official of the ministry of defense without name saying that government forces have regained control of a large part of the areas of Loyalists of Assad. He added that the authorities closed all the roads leading to the coastal region “to prevent violations and gradually restore stability”.
On Saturday morning, the bodies of 31 people killed in revenge attacks the day before in the central village of Tuwaym were buried in a serious mass, residents said. The people killed included nine children and four women, said residents, sending the photos with the bodies draped in white fabric while they were bordered in the mass grave.
The Lebanese legislator Haidar Nasser, who has one of the two seats allocated to the Alawite sect in Parliament, said that people were fleeing Syria for security in Lebanon. He said he had no exact figures.
Nasser said that many people were attacked at the Russian air base in Hmeimim, Syria, adding that the international community should protect Allawites who are Syrian citizens loyal to their country. He said that since the fall of Assad, many Alawites have been dismissed from their work and that some former soldiers who have reconciled with the new authorities have been killed.
Under Assad, Alawites held the best positions in the army and security agencies. The new government has blamed its loyalists for attacks on the country's new security forces in recent weeks.
The most recent clashes began when government forces tried to hold a sought after person near the coastal city of Jableh and were caught by the Loyalists of Assad, according to the observatory.
