Two days of fighting along the Mediterranean coast were among the bloodiest battles since rebels ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Reporting from Damascus, Syria
Clashes between Syria’s new authorities and gunmen loyal to the ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad have killed at least 147 people over the past two days, a war monitor said on Friday, in the bloodiest fighting since the collapse of the old regime.
The troubles erupted across Latakia and Tartus Provinces, longtime strongholds of Mr. al-Assad along Syria’s Mediterranean coast. The area has become a tinderbox since Mr. al-Assad was overthrown in early December by a coalition of rebel groups.
The clashes began on Thursday afternoon after Assad loyalists killed 16 security personnel for the government in the Latakia countryside, the deadliest attack yet on Syria’s new security forces, according to government officials and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has monitored the Syria civil war.
The government responded in force, deploying scores of security personnel in the countryside and directing thousands more from other cities to the coast as it tried to reestablish authority over a few towns and villages where armed gunmen had effectively seized control overnight. By Friday afternoon, the Syrian authorities still had not wrested back full control over some areas, raising the specter that the new government could lose control over the coast.
Armed Assad loyalists were also holding several security personnel hostage in Jableh, a coastal city in Latakia Province, where they had effectively seized control, according to Nour al-Din Primo, a spokesman for the government in Latakia.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, laid the blame for the violence of the last two days on people loyal to the former regime, saying they were trying to “test” the new Syria and fragment it. He called on them to lay down their weapons and surrender.
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