# Syrian security forces execute 125 civilians in battle against Assad loyalists

## Main Content

Fighting in Latakia is marked escalation by Bashar al Assad loyalists against Syria’s new Islamist-led government.

About 125 civilians have been executed by government security forces in north-west  during a rolling two-day battle with loyalists to the ousted Assad regime, a Syrian war monitor reported on Friday.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a human rights monitor considered independent and credible, documented “large-scale field executions of men and young adults, without any clear distinction between civilians and combatants”, in north-west Syria.

Fighting started on Thursday afternoon when militants loyal to the ousted Assad government  in a rural area of Latakia province, a former stronghold of the deposed leader where many of Syria’s minority Alawite Islamic sect live.

Late on Friday, interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa called on armed groups affiliated with the former government to lay down their arms “before it’s too late” and for those loyal to the new government to avoid attacking civilians or abusing prisoners.

“When we compromise our ethics, we reduce ourselves to the same level as our enemy,” he said in a video address. “The remnants of the fallen regime are looking for a provocation that will lead to violations behind which they can seek refuge.”

The wide-scale military operation is the biggest challenge to the new government in Damascus since the former Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the Assad regime on 8 December.

In response to the attack, the Syrian government mobilised thousands of troops to north-west Syria, and attacked Assad loyalists with helicopter gunships, drones and artillery.

The attack by Assad loyalists seems to have provoked revenge killings in north-west Syria, which is populated heavily by the minority Islamic Alawite sect from which deposed Syrian president  hailed.

SNHR reported that in al-Mukhtariya, Latakia, about 40 civilians were executed together in a single location. Videos of the massacre show people dressed in civilian clothes piled on top of one another as women wailed. Another video in a second town showed gunmen executing seemingly unarmed men who were crawling on their hands and knees away from them.

The Guardian was unable to independently verify either of the videos.

Syria’s coast is populated by Alawites, the sect from which the Assad family hailed, though most of the sect had no relation to the former regime. Mutual suspicion between Alawites in the coastal region and the new rulers of Syria has persisted since the toppling of the Assad regime.

Despite assurances that minorities, including Alawites, would be safe in the new Syria, Alawite communities have been subject to a number of revenge killings since December.

In one case, on 31 January in the town of Arza, in Homs province, eight men were asked if they were Alawite and then executed with a bullet to the head. Ten more men were executed in Arza on Friday, with their bodies left out in the open, SNHR reported.

Syria’s new rulers have said the killings were “individual cases” committed by individuals and groups unaffiliated with the government in Damascus, but that has done little to quell the growing fears of Alawites.

The new Syrian authorities have come under criticism for not being inclusive enough of Syria’s religious diversity and its vast civil society. A transitional government is to be announced in the coming weeks, the makeup of which will be a key test for the new rulers of Syria’s commitment to pluralism.

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