Fourteen personnel of Syria’s new safety forces have been killed in an ambush by suspected loyalists of ousted chief Bashar al-Assad within the Tartous countryside, the transitional authorities mentioned on Thursday.
The safety forces, made up primarily of armed rebels who seized energy earlier this month, clashed with the Assad loyalists close to the Mediterranean port in western Syria as they sought to arrest a former authorities official accused of issuing execution orders and arbitrary rulings towards hundreds of inmates within the Saydnaya jail.
New inside minister Mohammed Abdel Rahman mentioned “14 interior ministry personnel were killed and 10 others wounded” after a “treacherous ambush by remnants of the criminal regime” in Tartus province “while performing their tasks of maintaining security and safety”.
He vowed to crack down on “anyone who dares to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens”.
Armed militias led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, an al Qaeda offshoot, took over the nation in early December and compelled the president to flee, ending 5 a long time of the Assad household’s rule.
Syrian police had earlier imposed curfew in Homs metropolis after unrest linked to demonstrations that residents mentioned have been led by members of the minority Alawite and Shiite Muslim communities.
State media mentioned the curfew was imposed in a single day on Thursday.
The protests in Homs, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite group, broke out after “a number of residents refused to allow their houses to be searched”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, based mostly within the UK, mentioned. Some known as for the discharge of troopers from the previous Syrian military now imprisoned by the HTS.
It mentioned one demonstrator was killed and 5 wounded in Homs.
The protests have been apparently sparked partly by a video exhibiting the burning of an Alawite shrine. The interim regime insisted the video was previous and never a current incident.
There have been additionally protests on Christmas Eve towards the burning of a Christmas tree, prompting renewed requires the brand new rulers to guard spiritual minorities.
The nation’s new leaders have repeatedly vowed to guard minority spiritual teams who worry they may impose a conservative Islamist authorities.
The new regime claimed its forces raided warehouses within the capital Damascus on Wednesday, confiscating medicine just like the stimulant Captagon and hashish, which have been allegedly utilized by Assad’s troopers.
One million Captagon tablets and a whole bunch of kilograms of hashish have been set ablaze, the interim administration mentioned.
Additional inputs from companies.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-assad-clash-tartous-alawite-latest-b2670015.html