Thirteen Syrian security officers have been killed in clashes with remnants of the Assad regime in the deadliest attack against the country’s new authorities since the dictator was toppled.
Armed men attacked checkpoints and security officers in the coastal town of Jableh and the countryside of Latakia province, as part of a “premeditated” attack on Thursday, according to the provincial head of Syria’s general security directorate, Mustafa Knefati.
Fighting started about 2pm, according to a resident of Jableh who was sheltering in his home on Thursday night. “It sounds like Armageddon, there are massive clashes. I can hear helicopters, artillery and even mortars,” he said.
Syria’s new government has been engaged in sporadic fighting with former Assad militias since rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forced the dictator from power on 8 December.
A total of fifteen people were killed fighting in Deraa, south Syria, on Tuesday and Wednesday, after government forces attempted to enter a town controlled by a pro-Assad militia, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Grenades were also thrown at security officers in Latakia province on Wednesday.
The new government, led by president Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former HTS leader, has conducted what it calls “combing” operations to catch Assad-affiliated officers. Low-level officers and soldiers were offered clemency after they turned in their weapons to the state, but anyone implicated in war crimes is subject to arrest.
The Assad regime relied on a network of militias loyal to local strongmen to enforce its grip over the country during Syria’s 14-year civil war. The decentralised nature of those militias has made it difficult for Syria’s new rulers to completely dismantle the former regime’s military forces. Instead, many groups have merely been driven underground.
Security forces were attacked on Thursday by groups affiliated with Suhail al-Hassan, an infamous Syrian army officer who commanded the elite “Tiger Forces” division, according to the country’s state news service.
Security officers also arrested Maj Gen Ibrahim Huwaija, the former head of the air force intelligence branch who was accused of carrying out the 1977 assassination of the Lebanese politician Kamal Jumblatt.
