CNN
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At least 14 legislation enforcement personnel have been killed in western Syria in a single day in an “ambush” by the previous forces of deposed chief Bashar al-Assad, the inside ministry stated on Thursday, in a sign of challenges for the nation’s new authorities.
The assault within the countryside of the Tartus area additionally injured 10 officers, in keeping with the ministry. It got here hours after the brand new authorities’s army operations command stated its forces killed “a besieged group of remnants of the previous regime” in the identical space.
The ambush is the primary recognized massive assault by Assad loyalists since his ouster lower than three weeks in the past, and provides to the assessments for Syria’s new ruling administration, together with protests by non secular minorities involved over their rights below an Islamist rule and a brand new Israeli army occupation of Syrian territory within the south.
The new authorities have set a deadline for former regime forces and gangs at hand over their weapons, lower than three weeks after Assad fled the nation as rebels superior on the capital Damascus.
Syria’s army operations command stated extra forces have been deployed “to ascertain safety and maintain accountable the remnants of the previous regime who’re attempting to destabilize safety and terrorize individuals in some areas of the Syrian coast.”
“We is not going to tolerate any felony gang that seeks to undermine the safety and security of our individuals,” the director of public safety in Latakia, a western governorate on the nation’s Mediterranean coast, instructed state-run information company SANA on Wednesday.
Footage by information company Agence France-Presse filmed earlier final week confirmed former Assad regime safety forces handing of their weapons to the rebel-linked transitional authorities in Latakia. Syrian state media reported that different cities in Syria, comparable to Daraa, have carried out related schemes for returning weapons.
The new authorities additionally issued former regime forces non permanent playing cards to provide them freedom of motion in Syria whereas their “authorized proceedings are accomplished,” in keeping with a discover posted outdoors the federal government workplace, which may be seen within the AFP video. The discover gave no additional particulars in regards to the authorized proceedings.
The Assad regime and the Syrian forces that served his authorities have been accountable for many atrocities as they cracked down on political dissent, together with torture and ill-treatment of prisoners. More than 306,000 civilians in Syria have been killed between the outbreak of the civil conflict in 2011 and March 2021, in keeping with the newest estimate by the UN.
On Wednesday, movies on native social media accounts confirmed protests going down in Latakia governorate. CNN can’t independently confirm the movies.
The demonstrations passed off about the identical time as a video started circulating on social media that purports to indicate the desecration of a website in Aleppo that a part of the Alawite neighborhood claims as a shrine.
The new inside ministry issued a press release acknowledging the incident, however stated it occurred weeks in the past, and that the perpetrators are unknown.
Syria’s Alawite neighborhood, which predominantly lives in coastal areas, was propelled to key political, social and army posts in the course of the rule of Assad, and that of his father and predecessor Hafez.
The video exhibits hearth blazing contained in the shrine as 4 lifeless our bodies lie outdoors on the bottom, surrounded by a number of armed militants.
“We verify that the circulating video is an outdated video relationship again to the interval of the liberation of the town of Aleppo, made by unknown teams, and that our businesses are working day and evening to protect property and non secular websites,” the inside ministry stated.
“The aim of re-publishing such clips is to fire up strife among the many Syrian individuals at this delicate stage.”
