Syria's leader vowed on Sunday (March 9) to hunt down the perpetrators of violent clashes pitting loyalists of deposed President Bashar al-Assad against the country's new Islamist rulers and said he would hold to account anyone who overstepped their authority, Reuters reports.
In a speech broadcast on national television and posted on social media, Ahmed Sharaa, whose rebel movement toppled Assad in December, accused Assad loyalists and foreign powers that he did not name of trying to foment unrest.
The clashes, which a war monitoring group said had already killed 1,000 people, mostly civilians, continued for a fourth day in Assad's coastal heartland.
The top commander of a Syrian Kurdish armed group, whose forces are in a separate battle with Turkey, had earlier blamed Turkish-backed Islamist factions for some of the most disturbing violence: the reported executions of civilians belonging to Assad's Alawite sect.
Turkey did not immediately respond to the allegation.
Sharaa's office said it was forming an independent committee to investigate the clashes and killings by both sides.
Syrians have circulated graphic videos of executions by fighters.
Reuters could not immediately verify the videos.
A Syrian security source earlier said the pace of fighting had slowed around the cities of Latakia, Jabla and Baniyas, while forces searched surrounding mountainous areas where an estimated 5,000 pro-Assad insurgents were hiding.
Rebels led by Sharaa's Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group ousted Assad's government at the end of 2024.
Assad fled to Russia, leaving behind some of his closest advisers and supporters, while Sharaa's group led the appointment of an interim government and took over Syria's armed forces.
Assad's overthrow ended decades of dynastic rule by his family marked by severe repression and a devastating civil war that began as a peaceful uprising in 2011.
The war - in which Western countries, Arab states and Turkey backed the rebels, while Russia, Iran and militias loyal to Tehran backed Assad - became a theatre for proxy conflicts among a kaleidoscope of armed factions with different loyalties and agendas.
It has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions of Syrians.
Since Assad's overthrow, Turkish-backed groups have clashed with Kurdish forces that control much of northeastern Syria.
Israel has separately struck military sites in Syria, and is lobbying the U.S. to keep Syria weak, sources have told Reuters.
