DAMASCUS: Gunmen loyal to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad killed 16 security personnel on Thursday, a war monitor said, in attacks it described as the “most violent” since the longtime president’s ouster.

The fighting took place in the Mediterranean coastal province of Latakia, the heartland of the ousted president’s Alawi minority who were considered bastions of support during his rule.

The death toll “following attacks and ambushes by gunmen loyal to Assad in the town of Jableh and its surrounding areas increased to 16 members of the security forces”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the majority of the dead were from the former rebel bastion of Idlib.

It said they were “the most violent attacks against the new authorities since Assad was toppled”. At least three of the gunmen in Jableh were killed, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

Forces clash with gunmen in Latakia, the heartland of Alawi minority

The province’s security director had earlier said that Syrian forces were clashing with gunmen loyal to an Assad-era special forces commander in another village in Latakia, after authorities reportedly launched helicopter strikes.

“The armed groups that our security forces were clashing with in the Latakia countryside were affiliated with the war criminal Suhail al-Hassan, who committed the most heinous massacres against the Syrian people,” the security director told state news agency SANA.

Nicknamed “The Tiger”, Hassan led the country’s special forces and was frequently described as Assad’s “favourite soldier”. He was responsible for key advances by the Assad government in 2015.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported “strikes launched by Syrian helicopters on armed men in the village of Beit Ana and the surrounding forests, coinciding with artillery strikes on a neighbouring village”.

SANA reported that fighter groups loyal to the ousted president had opened fire on “members and equipment of the defence ministry” near the village, killing one security force member and wounding two. Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera reported that its photographer Riad al-Hussein was wounded in the clashes but that he was doing well.

A defence ministry source later told SANA that large military reinforcements were being deployed to the Jableh area “to support the security forces and restore stability to the area”.

Deadly attacks

Alawi leaders later called in a statement on Facebook for “peaceful protests” in response to the air strikes, which they said had targeted “the homes of civilians”.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2025