Newsman: The wave of violence has killed hundreds of civilians across Syria reached the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo on Monday. More than 1,300 people were killed in Syria in the three days to late Sunday, with civilians comprising 973 of the dead, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a statement. The death toll as of early Monday was not immediately clear.
The wave of violence killed hundreds of civilians across Syria hours after interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa vowed to bring those responsible to justice.The violence in the capital followed days of clashes concentrated in former Assad strongholds along Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
The interim president vowed on March 9 for accountability and an investigation after the killing of Alawite civilians triggered an international backlash against the worst violence since Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow.
“We must acknowledge the truth that the fallen regime left deep wounds during its rule,” Sharaa said in a speech late Sunday in which he called for peace and vowed to hold to account those responsible amid reports of executions and firing squads.
“Syria, with all its components, will remain united by the determination of its people,” he said, adding that he had formed “a fact-finding committee to investigate the events in the coastal region, to bring the perpetrators to justice, and to reveal the truths to the Syrian people, so that everyone knows who is responsible.”
As of late Sunday, most of the fighting was concentrated in the coastal areas of Latakia, where at least 545 civilians were reported to have been killed, and Tartus, where at least 252 civilians were killed, according to SOHR. Both areas are home to Syria’s Alawite community, the small Islamic sect to which the Assad family belongs, and have been a focus of security concerns amid Sharaa’s rise to power.
According to the SOHR, the vast majority of civilians killed in the outbreak of violence over the past few days have been Alawites. By Monday, Syrian state radio channel SHAM FM reported intense clashes between security forces and former regime members in the affluent Mazzeh neighborhood of Damascus that homes embassies, hotels and government departments. The Al-Watan newspaper said security forces had repelled an attack by unknown assailants on a checkpoint.
Meanwhile, Syrian Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Hassan Abdul-Ghani told Syrian state news agency SANA that military units had repelled an attack and “inflicted losses” in Aleppo on the Syrian Democratic Forces — the U.S.-allied Kurdish-led force that he said had launched the attack.
In a statement later Monday, Abdul-Ghani said security forces had been able to “absorb the attacks of the remnants of the fallen regime and its officers” from a number of areas, including within Latakia and Tartus. “This has resulted in thwarting threats and securing the region,” he said.
He added that new plans had been developed to eliminate future threats. He did not elaborate.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa called for national unity and peace on March 9, amid growing international backlash following the killing of civilians along the country’s coast in the worst violence since the overthrow of former president Bashar al-Assad.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday condemned the violence, saying in a statement that “the United States stands by the religious and ethnic minorities in Syria” as he called on the country’s interim leadership to “hold accountable the perpetrators of these massacres against the country’s minorities.”
