Citing a security source, the state-run SANA news agency said the personnel came under “direct gunfire” when their patrol “approached a suspicious vehicle parked on the roadside,” where “one of the persons inside the car opened fire directly at the security elements.”
The source added that the assailants fled the scene and that authorities are working to pursue the vehicle and identify the perpetrators.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, on Tuesday said there were “considerable contradictions between the governmental authorities’ statement and narratives by local sources” regarding the incident.
According to the Observatory, “local sources have reported that a vehicle was chasing another one, before the two vehicles crashed near Al-Jam’iyah bridge,” resulting in a gunfight. The monitor added that “the local sources confirmed that the incident followed an internal dispute.”
The Observatory stated that it obtained video footage “showing two civilian vehicles involved in the incident, while the bodies appearing in the video were of security members in civilian clothes, which further obscures what actually happened.”
Violence broke out in early March in Syria’s predominantly Alawite coastal regions - including Tartous - after loyalists of ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad reportedly attacked security forces affiliated with the interim government.
The clashes left around 1,700 people dead, mostly Alawite civilians, with many casualties attributed to government or pro-government forces, according to SOHR.
On Saturday, a bomb planted inside an old car exploded in Damascus, though no casualties were reported.
