The gunfire started at daybreak on Friday within the city of al-Haffa on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
At first, Wala, a 29-year-old resident of the city, leaped off her mattress to the nook of the room in her first-floor house, flattening herself because the rat-a-tat of gunshots sounded exterior her bed room window.
When the commotion grew louder, she stated, she crept to the window and peeled again the curtain. Exterior, dozens of individuals had been fleeing down the highway, many of their pajamas, as 4 males in forest inexperienced uniforms chased them. Then, the uniformed males opened fireplace. Inside seconds, 4 of the fleeing individuals crumpled to the bottom.
“I couldn’t imagine what I used to be seeing. I used to be terrified, terrified,” stated Wala, who requested to be recognized solely by her first identify for worry of retribution.
The assault in her city was a part of the unrest that has shaken Syria’s coast during the last 4 days and has killed greater than 1,000 individuals, the struggle monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated early Sunday. It was the bloodiest outbreak of violence since rebels ousted the longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in early December, then sought to say their rule over a rustic fractured by practically 14 years of civil struggle.
The violence broke out on Thursday when armed males loyal to Mr. al-Assad ambushed authorities safety forces in Latakia Province, the place al-Haffa is positioned. The ambush set off days of clashes between Assad loyalists and authorities forces.
The Observatory, which is predicated in Britain and has monitored the Syrian battle since 2011, stated early Sunday that about 700 civilians had been among the many greater than 1,000 useless, most of them killed by authorities forces.
At the least 65 civilians had been killed in al-Haffa, based on the Observatory.
One other struggle monitoring group, the Syrian Community for Human Rights, had not but up to date its figures on Sunday, nevertheless it reported on Saturday that authorities safety forces had killed an estimated 125 civilians.
Not one of the claims of numbers killed may very well be independently verified.
Officers with the brand new authorities rejected accusations that its safety forces had dedicated atrocities. However they stated they had been dedicated to investigating accusations and holding anybody who had harmed civilians accountable.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, referred to as for unity as he moved to reassure the nation after the lethal clashes.
“We should protect nationwide unity and civil peace,” he stated on Sunday at a mosque in Damascus, based on video that circulated on-line. “We name on Syrians to be reassured as a result of the nation has the basics for survival.”
The violence has raised the specter of a bigger sectarian battle in Syria and stoked panic within the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus. The area is the heartland of Syria’s Alawite minority, which dominated the ruling class and higher ranks of the army below the Assad authorities, and included the Assad family itself. The brand new authorities was shaped from a coalition of rebels led by an Islamist Sunni Muslim group.
The Observatory stated a lot of the civilians killed in latest days had been Alawites.
On Saturday, the freeway main from the capital, Damascus, into Tartus was practically empty because the authorities tried to seal off all visitors into the coastal area. Authorities safety forces arrange checkpoints alongside the primary roads into and all through Tartus metropolis, the provincial capital, the place most outlets had been closed and plenty of residents had been hunkering down of their houses.
Shadi Ahmed Khodar, 47, sat by the freeway main from Tartus north to Latakia, watching because the occasional ambulance or authorities automobile sped by. The streets of his neighborhood had emptied as violence raged in latest days, turning Tartus right into a ghost city, he stated. He’s an Alawite however like many within the metropolis, he stated he doesn’t assist the Assad loyalists who’ve taken up arms in opposition to Syria’s new authorities.
However he was additionally terrified that safety forces with the brand new authorities would now not distinguish between armed Assad loyalists and folks like him — a crane operator who had labored for the Assad authorities.
“Possibly they are going to simply come right here and say we’re in opposition to them and kill us,” he stated.
The nation, he feared, was barreling towards extra battle. The violence had but to subside by late Saturday afternoon and, down the highway from the place he stood, authorities forces at a checkpoint had been warning drivers that gunmen had been ambushing automobiles driving up the coast towards Latakia.
“We’re simply within the shallow water,” Mr. Khodar stated. “We haven’t reached the depths but.”
Within the close by countryside of Latakia Province, armed Assad loyalists had been holding dozens of presidency safety personnel hostage after seizing management a day earlier, residents stated. In different areas, native residents had taken up arms and stationed themselves exterior their houses to guard their households, after listening to studies about authorities forces killing civilians.
In Baniyas, a city on the northern tip of Tartus Province, armed males who gave the impression to be with the federal government had stormed into the city’s predominately Alawite neighborhoods late Thursday night time, based on 4 residents.
Ghaith Moustafa, a resident of Baniyas, stated he had spent most of Friday and Saturday huddling along with his spouse, Hala Hamed, and their 2-month-old son behind their entrance door — the one place of their small house that was not close to any home windows.
Early Friday morning, he stated he heard the patter of taking pictures develop louder as armed males reached his constructing. Then he heard males shouting, gunfire and screams coming from the house under his. He later realized that his downstairs neighbors had been killed.
“I used to be so scared for my child, for my spouse,” Mr. Moustafa, 30, stated in a phone interview. “She was so afraid. I didn’t know tips on how to not present her that I used to be additionally afraid for us.”
When the gunfire subsided round 2 p.m. on Saturday, Mr. Moustafa stated he and his household fled their house and sought shelter at a pal’s home in a close-by neighborhood that had been spared a lot of the violence. Driving away from residence, he was horrified.
Each two or three meters, a physique lay on the bottom, he stated. Blood stains had been smeared throughout the pavement. Storefronts home windows had been shattered and plenty of outlets appeared to have been looted, he stated.
The Syrian Observatory stated on Saturday that at the very least 60 civilians, together with 5 kids, had been killed within the violence in Baniyas.
“I’m shocked, I’m simply shocked,” stated Mr. Moustafa, a pharmacist. By Saturday night, all he might take into consideration was leaving. “We’ve got to get out of right here as quickly as potential,” he added. “It’s not secure, under no circumstances secure.”
Mr. Moustafa was amongst a whole lot of people that fled Baniyas on Saturday, based on residents. Many sought shelter with pals who weren’t Alawite within the hope that their neighborhoods would keep away from the brunt of any extra violence.
Wala, the al-Haffa resident who stated she noticed males in uniforms taking pictures at individuals because the fled, was taking cowl with family and friends in her house when safety personnel knocked down the entrance door, about an hour after authorities forces had entered her city. A pal visiting from the northwestern area of Idlib, the place the rebels who overthrew Mr. al-Assad got here from, pleaded with them to not shoot.
“She stated, ‘I’m from Idlib. All my household is from Idlib. Please don’t do something to those individuals. They’re peaceable household,’” Wala recounted in a telephone interview.
The lads demanded that the pal hand over her telephone and yelled at Wala to open her secure, which she did. They demanded that Wala’s mom give them her gold necklace and earrings, Wala stated.
Earlier than they left, the boys issued a stern warning: Don’t go away the home. She and her kinfolk rushed again to her bed room, terrified.
However about an hour later, because the gunfire subsided, they defied that order to attempt to assist somebody they might hear pleading from the road.
Exterior, Wala stated she discovered two males who had been shot. One was lined in blood and requested her in a weak voice to carry his head a bit from the bottom. The opposite, shot within the thigh, begged for water.
Earlier than lengthy gunfire rang out once more and Wala ran again inside. By Saturday night, she stated, she didn’t know whether or not both man had survived.
Raja Abdulrahim contributed reporting.
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