Syrian President Ahmed Shaara has called for peace following the recent escalation in violence that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians, in the worst violence since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Armed groups in several villages attacked government forces and set up ambushes on roads leading to major cities along the coast. A Syrian security official told Reuters that at least 200 members of the security forces were killed in these clashes.
Alawites, who make up about 10% of the country’s population and have largely remained loyal to Assad, have reported being discriminated against by the new Islamist authorities. They claim that government forces carried out a massacre against them.
