More than 600 Syrians have died in bloody clashes after violence broke out between supporters of the conflict-riddled nation’s new rulers and ousted President Bashar al Assad loyalists.
The violent clashes, which erupted Thursday, are some of the deadliest since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago, and marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after insurgents took authority after removing Assad from power.
The government has said that they were responding to attacks from remnants of Assad’s forces and blamed ‘individual actions’ for the rampant violence.
The revenge killings that were started by Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect are a major blow to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the faction that led the overthrow of the former government.
Alawites made up a large part of Assad’s support base for decades.
Residents of Baniyas, one of the towns worst hit by the violence, said bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them.
One witness said that the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbors killed Friday at close range.
‘They forcibly brought people down to the streets, then they lined them up and started shooting them,’ a resident of Baniyasin told Sky News.
Soldiers are seen in a vehicle with damaged windows as authorities extended the curfew in the cities of Latakia and Tartus in northwest Syria on Friday and launched large-scale security sweeps in urban centers, villages, and surrounding mountains to track down remnants of the deposed Bashar al-Assad regime on March 07, 2025 in Latakia, Syria
The clashes are some of the deadliest since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago
Smoke rises as search and sweep operations are being expanded to track down remnants of the deposed Bashar al-Assad regime after recent security tensions in the coastal region, where ousted regime elements attacked security patrols and checkpoints, resulting in casualties
‘They left nobody. They left nobody at all. The scene that I saw was pure horror; it’s just indescribable,’ he said.
The man aslo described how women were forced to ‘walk naked’ before being shot dead.
Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of Baniyas who fled with his family and neighbors hours after the violence broke out Friday, said that at least 20 of his neighbors and colleagues in one neighborhood of Baniyas where Alawites lived, were killed, some of them in their shops, or in their homes.
Sheha called the attacks ‘revenge killings’ of the Alawite minority for the crimes committed by Assad’s government.
Other residents said the gunmen included foreign fighters, and militants from neighboring villages and towns.
‘It was very very bad. Bodies were on the streets,’ as he was fleeing, Sheha said, speaking by phone from nearly 20 kilometers (12 miles) away from the city.
He said the gunmen were gathering less than 100 meters from his apartment building, firing randomly at homes and residents and in at least one incident he knows of, asked residents for their IDs to check their religion and their sect before killing them.
Horrific footage shows the violent clashes, with one video showing street fighters exchnaging gunfire.
The leaders of Syria’s three main Christian churches issued a joint statement Saturday condemning ‘massacres targeting innocent civilians’, following reports of mass killings of Alawite civilians by the security forces.
Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said ‘532 Alawite civilians were killed in the coastal regions of Syria and the Latakia mountains by security forces and allied groups’.
More than 600 Syrians have died in the bloody clashes that erupted on Thursday
The latest string of violence in Syria also marks a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus
It comes three months after insurgents took authority after removing Assad from power
Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said ‘532 Alawite civilians were killed in the coastal regions of Syria and the Latakia mountains
‘In recent days, Syria has witnessed a dangerous escalation of violence, brutality, and killings, resulting in attacks on innocent civilians, including women and children,’ the joint statement said.
It was signed by the patriarchs of the Greek Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholic Churches.
The reported killings on the Mediterranean coast – the heartland of the Alawite religious minority – was gripped by fighting between the country’s new security forces and gunmen loyal to toppled president Bashar al-Assad.
Though the majority of Syria’s Christians fled during the civil war that erupted in 2011, the city of Latakia, which has been hard hit by the latest violence, is home to a small Christian community.
‘The Christian churches, while strongly condemning any act that threatens civil peace, denounce and condemn the massacres targeting innocent civilians, and call for an immediate end to these horrific acts, which stand in stark opposition to all human and moral values,’ the statement said.
‘The churches also call for the swift creation of conditions conducive to achieving national reconciliation among the Syrian people.’
They urged a ‘transition to a state that… lays the foundation for a society based on equal citizenship and genuine partnership, free from the logic of vengeance and exclusion’.
The spiritual leader of Syria’s Druze minority, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajri, also called for an end to the violence.
The new authorities have repeatedly promised an inclusive transition that protects the rights of religious minorities
Relatives and neighbours attend the funeral procession for four Syrian security force members killed in clashes with loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad in coastal Syria
‘The flames that burn under sectarian slogans will burn all of Syria and its people,’ he said in a statement.
Assad, himself an Alawite who sought to present himself as a protector of Syria’s minorities, was ousted on December 8 in a lightning offensive led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
The group’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has since been appointed Syria’s interim president.
The new authorities have repeatedly promised an inclusive transition that protects the rights of religious minorities.
The Alawite heartland has nonetheless been gripped by fear of reprisals for the Assad family’s brutal rule.
