ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - More than a dozen security personnel affiliated with the new Syrian leadership were killed in Latakia, west Syria, by supporters of the toppled Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, a war monitor reported, anticipating the number of fatalities to rise.
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), told Rudaw that 16 members of the security forces, mostly from the predominantly Sunni province of Idlib were killed in “attacks and ambushes” carried out by Assad loyalists in his former stronghold of Jableh and Latakia countryside.
The UK-based Observatory described the assault as “the deadliest attack on security and military forces since the fall of the [Assad] regime.”
Following a swift offensive, a coalition of rebel groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on December 8 toppled the regime of Assad, who fled to Russia with his family.
SOHR added on Thursday that “at least three members of the armed groups were killed in clashes” as well. It quoted Syrian security forces as stating that they were engaged in clashes with “armed groups affiliated with Suhail al-Hassan, a prominent military commander during Assad’s rule.”
For its part, the state-run Syrian news agency (SANA) cited the head of Latakia’s General Security Directorate, Mustafa Knaifati as describing the attack as “planned and premeditated.” He added that “several” armed groups affiliated with Assad “attacked our positions and checkpoints, targeting many of our patrols in the Jableh and its countryside.”
SANA quoted another unnamed security source in Latakia as stating that “the remnants” of Assad’s regime “are targeting personnel and vehicles of the Ministry of Defense near the town of Beit Aana in the Latakia countryside.”
The fighting marks a sharp escalation of tensions along Syria’s coast often regarded as the heartland of the Alawite sect, which Assad descends from.
Updated at 11:28 pm
