Fighting broke out around several hospitals in Latakia city on Saturday, according to Syrian state media [Getty]
Syria’s interim president Ahmed Al-Sharaa has vowed to defeat insurgents in the country’s restive northwest in an eruption of violence that has reportedly claimed the lives of hundreds of people.
Clashes between government forces and Assad-linked militia continued for a third day in Latakia on Saturday after fighting broke out near several hospitals in the city.
In a video statement on Friday, the former rebel leader described the violence as “an attack on all Syrians” and called on security forces not to commit abuses amid reports of reprisals against Alawite civilians.
“Some of the loyalists of the ousted regime have attempted to test the new Syria they are unfamiliar with,” Al-Sharaa said. “Today they are getting to know it.”
State news agency SANA reported on Saturday that militia attacked the National Hospital and the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Latakia.
Other medical buildings in the region were targeted on Friday night, according to the country’s health ministry.
“Six hospitals in the rural areas of Latakia and Tartus were directly attacked by remnants of the fallen regime last night, leading to the martyrdom of several individuals, the injury of others, and significant damage to infrastructure,” SANA reported the ministry’s media office as saying.
Al-Sharaa’s statement came amid competing estimates of the death toll and growing evidence of abuses carried out by the security forces and Assad militia.
Local rights group the Syrian Network for Human Rights said Friday that at least 125 civilians had been summarily executed by government forces.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that more than 300 Alawite civilians have been killed since Thursday. The UK-based war monitor put the overall death toll at more than 500.
The government has not released any casualty figures.
The fighting was sparked on Thursday by what the government has described as a coordinated attack by loyalists of the former regime.
Army positions in several areas of Latakia and Tartous provinces came under attack by gunmen, who reportedly began targeting civilians and public buildings.
“Groups began to attack the Syrian army and assault civilians, and they killed a group of them,” one Latakia resident told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed – the sister publication of The New Arab.
“They shot at the Qaynas Mosque, they used hand grenades,” said another, describing the attackers as “remnants of the regime”.
The fighting is the biggest episode of sectarian violence since Islamist rebels ousted Basher al-Assad in December.
The new government in Damascus has vowed to protect the country’s religious and ethnic minorities including the Alawites – an ethnoreligious sect from which the Assad regime drew much of its support.
Several countries in the region have issued statements in support of the government since the fighting began, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and the UAE.
