The gunfire started at daybreak on Friday within the city of al-Haffa on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
At first, Wala, a 29-year-old resident of the city, leaped off her mattress to the nook of the room in her first-floor condo, flattening herself because the rat-a-tat of gunshots sounded exterior her bed room window.
When the commotion grew louder, she mentioned, she crept to the window and peeled again the curtain. Outdoors, dozens of individuals had been fleeing down the highway, many of their pajamas, as 4 males in forest inexperienced uniforms chased them. Then, the uniformed males opened hearth. Inside seconds, 4 of the fleeing individuals crumpled to the bottom.
“I couldn’t consider what I used to be seeing. I used to be terrified, terrified,” mentioned Wala, who requested to be recognized solely by her first identify for worry of retribution.
The assault in her city was a part of the unrest that has shaken Syria’s coast over the past 4 days and has killed greater than 1,000 individuals, the conflict monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights mentioned early Sunday. It was the bloodiest outbreak of violence since rebels ousted the longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in early December, then sought to say their rule over a rustic fractured by almost 14 years of civil conflict.
The violence broke out on Thursday when armed males loyal to Mr. al-Assad ambushed authorities safety forces in Latakia Province, the place al-Haffa is situated. The ambush set off days of clashes between Assad loyalists and authorities forces.
The Observatory, which is predicated in Britain and has monitored the Syrian battle since 2011, mentioned early Sunday that about 700 civilians had been among the many greater than 1,000 useless, most of them killed by authorities forces.
At the least 65 civilians had been killed in al-Haffa, based on the Observatory.
One other conflict monitoring group, the Syrian Community for Human Rights, reported on Saturday that authorities safety forces had killed an estimated 125 civilians. These claims couldn’t be independently verified.
Officers with the brand new authorities rejected accusations that its safety forces had dedicated atrocities. However they mentioned they had been dedicated to investigating accusations and holding anybody who had harmed civilians accountable.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, referred to as for unity as he moved to reassure the nation after the lethal clashes.
“We should protect nationwide unity and civil peace,” he mentioned on Sunday at a mosque in Damascus, based on video that circulated on-line. “We name on Syrians to be reassured as a result of the nation has the basics for survival.”
The violence has raised the specter of a bigger sectarian battle in Syria and stoked panic within the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus. The area is the heartland of Syria’s Alawite minority, which dominated the ruling class and higher ranks of the navy underneath the Assad authorities, and included the Assad family itself. The brand new authorities was shaped from a coalition of rebels led by an Islamist Sunni Muslim group.
The Observatory mentioned a lot of the civilians killed in latest days had been Alawites.
On Saturday, the freeway main from the capital, Damascus, into Tartus was almost empty because the authorities tried to seal off all visitors into the coastal area. Authorities safety forces arrange checkpoints alongside the principle roads into and all through Tartus metropolis, the provincial capital, the place most outlets had been closed and plenty of residents had been hunkering down of their properties.
Shadi Ahmed Khodar, 47, sat by the freeway main from Tartus north to Latakia, watching because the occasional ambulance or authorities car sped by. The streets of his neighborhood had emptied as violence raged in latest days, turning Tartus right into a ghost city, he mentioned. He’s an Alawaite however like many within the metropolis, he mentioned he doesn’t help the Assad loyalists who’ve taken up arms towards Syria’s new authorities.
However he was additionally terrified that safety forces with the brand new authorities would now not distinguish between armed Assad loyalists and other people like him — a crane operator who had labored for the Assad authorities.
“Possibly they’ll simply come right here and say we’re towards them and kill us,” he mentioned.
The nation, he feared, was barreling towards extra battle. The violence had but to subside by late Saturday afternoon and, down the highway from the place he stood, authorities forces at a checkpoint had been warning drivers that gunmen had been ambushing vehicles driving up the coast towards Latakia.
“We’re simply within the shallow water,” Mr. Khodar mentioned. “We haven’t reached the depths but.”
Within the close by countryside of Latakia Province, armed Assad loyalists had been holding dozens of presidency safety personnel hostage after seizing management a day earlier, residents mentioned. In different areas, native residents had taken up arms and stationed themselves exterior their properties to guard their households, after listening to stories about authorities forces killing civilians.
In Baniyas, a city on the northern tip of Tartus Province, armed males who seemed to be with the federal government had stormed into the city’s predominately Alawite neighborhoods late Thursday night time, based on 4 residents.
Ghaith Moustafa, a resident of Baniyas, mentioned he had spent most of Friday and Saturday huddling together with his spouse, Hala Hamed, and their 2-month-old son behind their entrance door — the one place of their small condo that was not close to any home windows.
Early Friday morning, he mentioned he heard the patter of taking pictures develop louder as armed males reached his constructing. Then he heard males shouting, gunfire and screams coming from the condo beneath his. He later discovered that his downstairs neighbors had been killed.
“I used to be so scared for my child, for my spouse,” Mr. Moustafa, 30, mentioned in a phone interview. “She was so afraid. I didn’t know easy methods to not present her that I used to be additionally afraid for us.”
When the gunfire subsided round 2 p.m. on Saturday, Mr. Moustafa mentioned he and his household fled their condo and sought shelter at a pal’s home in a close-by neighborhood that had been spared a lot of the violence. Driving away from house, he was horrified.
Each two or three meters, a physique lay on the bottom, he mentioned. Blood stains had been smeared throughout the pavement. Storefronts home windows had been shattered and plenty of outlets appeared to have been looted, he mentioned.
The Syrian Observatory mentioned on Saturday that at the very least 60 civilians, together with 5 kids, had been killed within the violence in Baniyas.
“I’m shocked, I’m simply shocked,” mentioned Mr. Moustafa, a pharmacist. By Saturday night, all he may take into consideration was leaving. “We now have to get out of right here as quickly as doable,” he added. “It’s not protected, by no means protected.”
Mr. Moustafa was amongst a whole lot of people that fled Baniyas on Saturday, based on residents. Many sought shelter with associates who weren’t Alawite within the hope that their neighborhoods would keep away from the brunt of any extra violence.
Wala, the al-Haffa resident who mentioned she noticed males in uniforms taking pictures at individuals because the fled, was taking cowl with family and friends in her condo when safety personnel knocked down the entrance door, about an hour after authorities forces had entered her city. A pal visiting from the northwestern area of Idlib, the place the rebels who overthrew Mr. al-Assad got here from, pleaded with them to not shoot.
“She mentioned, ‘I’m from Idlib. All my household is from Idlib. Please don’t do something to those individuals. They’re peaceable household,’” Wala recounted in a cellphone interview.
The boys demanded that the pal hand over her cellphone and yelled at Wala to open her protected, which she did. They demanded that Wala’s mom give them her gold necklace and earrings, Wala mentioned.
Earlier than they left, the boys issued a stern warning: Don’t go away the home. She and her relations rushed again to her bed room, terrified.
However bout an hour later, because the gunfire subsided, they defied that order to attempt to assist somebody they may hear pleading from the road.
Outdoors, Wala mentioned she discovered two males who had been shot. One was coated in blood and requested her in a weak voice to raise his head a bit from the bottom. The opposite, shot within the thigh, begged for water.
Earlier than lengthy gunfire rang out once more and Wala ran again inside. By Saturday night, she mentioned, she didn’t know whether or not both man had survived.
Raja Abdulrahim contributed reporting.
