ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least two civilians were killed and nearly 50 injured in violence tied to Alawite protests in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia, a war monitor said on Sunday, while the country’s interior ministry reported that one security member was killed and several others were injured.
The interior ministry said it had announced “the martyrdom of one of the internal security elements and the injury of several elements while performing their national duty in maintaining security and securing the protests” in Latakia.
The demonstrations followed a call by Ghazal Ghazal, a leader of Syria’s Alawite community, a day earlier, as well as a deadly attack on an Alawite mosque on Friday.
The ministry said that “security elements tasked with securing today's protests were subjected to direct attacks in the city of Latakia,” adding that forces were also attacked in the Tartus countryside “by groups linked to remnants of the [Assad] regime.”
Meanwhile, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Sunday that “two people died in Latakia from gunshot wounds, and 48 others were injured in Latakia, Jableh, and Tartus, some critically.”
Earlier in the day, SOHR reported that protesters were “attacked with live gunfire and bladed weapons” by Damascus security forces and their affiliated groups.
“We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and consider it a flagrant violation of Syrians’ right to peacefully express their opinions and legitimate demands,” the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) said in a statement, adding that it “holds those responsible within the Syrian Transitional Government accountable for these practices.