600 die amid clashes between Syrian forces, Assad loyalists
The death toll from two days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 600, a war monitoring group said on Saturday, making it one of the deadliest acts of violence since Syria's conflict began 14 years ago.
The clashes, which erupted Thursday, 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. Retribution killings between Sunnis and Alawites, the revenge killings that started on Friday 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 Alawite villages and towns talked about the killings during which gunmen shot Alawites, the majority of them men, in the streets or at the gates of their homes. Many homes of Alawites were looted and then set on fire in different areas, two residents of Syria's coastal region told mediapersons.
They asked that their names not be made public out of fear of being killed by gunmen, adding that thousands of people have fled to nearby mountains for safety. Residents speak of atrocities, stating bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them. A local said the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbours killed Friday at close range.
Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of Baniyas, who fled with his family and neighbours hours after the violence broke out Friday, said at least 20 of his neighbours and colleagues in one neighbourhood of Baniyas where Alawites lived, were killed, some of them in their shops, or in their homes.
