At least 13 Syrian security troops killed in clashes with pro-Assad gunmen

Attack is among the deadliest since Syria's new administration, led by interim President Ahmad Al Shara, took power

Troops allied to Syria's new government gather in the southern town of Sanamayn, in Deraa province. AFP

At least 13 members of Syria’s newly formed security forces were killed on Thursday in an ambush by militants linked to ousted leader Bashar Al Assad in the coastal region of Jableh, near Latakia, government-aligned Syria TV reported.

It was one of the deadliest clashes since rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham group took power, as tension continues to rise in the coastal region, the heartland of Mr Al Assad’s Alawite sect.

The chief of security in Latakia province, Lt Col Mustafa Kunaifati, said that the attack, by "several groups of Assad militia remnants", was a "carefully planned and premeditated" assault on security posts, checkpoints and patrols in the Jableh area.

Lt Col Kunaifati said large military reinforcements from other governorates had been sent to Jableh to "restore stability in the region".

State news agency Sana reported demonstrations in Damascus, Hama, Homs and Idlib in support of security forces' operations to secure Jableh.

Sana also reported the arrest in Jableh of former general intelligence chief Ibrahim Huweija, who is accused of organising several assassinations during the rule of Hafez Al Assad, Bashar's father, including that of Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt.

Syria has arrested a former intelligence chief linked to the assassination of Lebanese Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt, above, in 1977. AFP

Monzer, a resident of Jableh, told The National that the gunmen affiliated with the former regime had come from a neighbouring village and that the roads to the centre of the town, where he lives, were completely cut off due to the fierce fighting on the outskirts.

"The situation is calm now," he said, before being interrupted by the sound of bullets.

Earlier on Thursday, two members of the government forces were killed in the coastal city of Latakia by former regime loyalists, officials and residents told The National.

And troops allied to Syria's new government forced fighters loyal to a local warlord to surrender after heavy fighting in the southern town of Sanamayn.

The clashes are part of the government's campaign to quell opposition from armed groups outside the coalition led by HTS that toppled Mr Al Assad in December. A security official in southern Syria said dozens of warlord Mohammad Al Humaid’s men surrendered after two days of heavy fighting in their stronghold in the western sector of Sanamayn, a town in Deraa province, although their leader escaped.

Mr Al Humaid had a degree of independence under the Assad regime and resisted the new HTS-led government's calls to disarm. His fighters have clashed repeatedly with HTS forces in the past two months.

In Latakia, government forces continued a siege for a second day in the Daatour district, where residents are mainly from the Alawite sect to which the former dictator belongs. Interior Ministry personnel and auxiliaries allied with HTS entered the district, which is on the northern edge of the mostly Sunni city, after two members of a new government security force were killed. The ministry said on Tuesday that the attackers were from Assad loyalist militias, known as shabiha, and were traced to Daatour.

“They are blasting with missiles any building in Daatour where they suspect there are shabiha,” a resident of an adjacent district, who requested anonymity, told The National on Thursday.

Another source in Latakia, who works with HTS, said that the weapons supply line to Daatour from the nearby Alawite Mountains had been cut and that new HTS recruits from Latakia had joined the operation in the district. “There is no option except to respond forcefully” to the killing of the two men, he said.

Videos on social media purportedly showed HTS-aligned gunmen on lorries inside Daatour. There were no immediate reports of casualties on Thursday. Fifteen people have been killed in the violence so far, including civilians.

A Syrian government fighter fires his weapon during the operation against a local warlord in Sanamin on Wednesday. AFP

The clashes raise concerns about increasing sectarian violence in the religiously and ethnically diverse country after nearly 14 years of civil war, as the new government under HTS, a group formerly linked to Al Qaeda, seeks to bring all armed factions in Syrian under the control of Damascus.

Government forces on Thursday imposed a “security cordon” around two villages in the Latakia countryside aimed at surrounding “regime remnants and outlaws”, the state news agency Sana reported, citing a security official.

Latakia has large Alawite districts mainly populated by former members of the Assad-era security apparatus or the bureaucracy, part of a six-decade minority-rule system in Sunni-majority Syria. That started when largely Alawite officers took power in a 1963 coup, and ended when rebel groups led by HTS forced Mr Assad to flee the country in early December.

Over the past three months, dozens of Alawites suspected of links to the past regime have been killed in revenge attacks. They have been concentrated in the central governorate of Homs and in the countryside of the adjacent province of Hama, where eight people died in retaliatory sectarian killings last week.

Ahmad Al Shara, the country’s new leader, has promised elections after a transitional period expected to last several years. But events in the past three months have put the country’s Sunni majority in the ascendancy, and the Alawites have lost their near-monopoly in security and managerial positions in government.

But unease about the new order has also contributed to violence between HTS and its allied forces and members of the Druze and Kurdish minorities. The government has not commented on the campaign in Latakia city since announcing the killing of the two security personnel on Wednesday. They belonged to a force under the Defence Ministry, which is led by Murhaf Abu Qasra, a major figure in HTS.