HTS armed formations en route to Latakia, Mar. 6. Photo: Reuters
More than 70 people have been killed in clashes that began yesterday in Syria's Latakia province between forces of the government group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supporters of the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), dozens of people have been wounded or captured.
As the activists report, forces of the current Syrian government are in full control of Tartus, and the cities of Latakia, Jableh, and Baniyas are also “largely” under their control. Former soldiers from Assad's army, fighting in opposition to HTS, operate mostly in rural areas, SOHR said. Al Qardahah and some other towns in Latakia province are outside the control of the new government’s forces, though HTS reinforcements continue to flow into the area.
The SOHR statement emphasized that the Syrian authorities attributed responsibility for the clashes to a group of former military officers and not to the Alawite ethnoreligious group, whose members inhabit Latakia and to which the Assad family belongs.
Mustafa Kneifati, a security official in Latakia, told AFP that in a “well-planned and deliberate attack, several groups made up of remnants of Assad's militia attacked our positions and checkpoints.” An operation launched by security forces resulted in the arrest of former air force intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Huwaija, state news agency SANA reported. The general, who headed the intelligence agency from 1987 to 2002, is suspected of involvement in hundreds of killings during the period of Hafez al-Assad’s rule. Specifically, Huwaija is accused of organizing the 1977 assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, founder of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon and leader of the Lebanese Druze.