Remnants of the ousted Syrian regime launched large-scale assaults on security forces stationed along the Syrian coast on 6 March in an area seen as a stronghold of former president Bashar Al-Assad and senior officers and security officials.
Employing guerrilla tactics, the attackers targeted police checkpoints, military-affiliated state institutions, and hospitals. In two days of attacks, they killed more than 100 security and police personnel, as well as an unspecified number of civilians.
The Syrian security forces dispatched reinforcements and conducted sweeping operations in areas where intelligence indicated that senior figures of the former regime were in hiding. However, the attacks persisted, with the region’s rugged and mountainous terrain assisting them. The Syrian Army intervened three days later, deploying additional reinforcements to the coastal area.
Millions of Syrians went out onto the streets of towns and cities across the country to protest against attempts by figures of the defunct regime and its security services to rekindle chaos and bloodshed in the country at a time when it has begun to enjoy a new sense of security and stability.
The demonstrations swept the country, including in the coastal cities that were under attack, with the protesters sending a message of support to the security forces and the army and voicing their determination not to allow Syria to slip back into crisis.
As army reinforcements made their way to the conflict zones, various military factions from northern Syria moved towards the coast, including some undisciplined groups. Additionally, irregular volunteer forces rushed to suppress the chaos in the coastal cities, prompting accusations from local residents of committing massacres against civilians.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights, a NGO, reported that these forces killed over 125 civilians, along with an unspecified number of regime remnants, while local sources estimated the death toll at 700 civilians.
In the days that followed, the security forces and the army reasserted their control over the main cities in the area, with remnants of the ousted regime operating from mountainous regions and launching ambushes against security personnel. Local people unveiled a mass grave in Qardaha, a stronghold of Bashar Al-Assad, containing the bodies of security officers.
The Syrian Transitional Government has accused Iran and the pro-Iran Lebanese group Hizbullah of inciting and orchestrating the attacks by Al-Assad loyalists. It also accused senior security figures from the deposed regime of plotting a coup aiming to seize control of key coastal areas and instigate a civil war in Sweida in southern Syria in a subsequent phase.
Lebanese sources said that regional and international entities had informed the Lebanese authorities about Hizbullah’s preparations in Syrian territory, which were suspected to be linked to a coup attempt on the Syrian coast.
The preparations were said to involve armed groups established by Colonel Ghiath Dala, a leader of the Fourth Division loyal to Maher Al-Assad, Bashar’s brother. Syrian sources confirmed that the security agencies had uncovered two Iranian operational centres, one in Iraq and the other near the Syrian-Lebanese border, which had been established weeks earlier to monitor the situation in Syria.
The Arab countries declared their rejection of any actions that threaten Syria’s stability and of the armed insurrection against the Syrian security forces. Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Kuwait, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) all issued strong condemnations of the attacks on the security forces, reaffirming their support for the Syrian Transitional Government in preserving civil peace and maintaining security.
Several international envoys stressed the urgent need to pursue a peaceful resolution and a comprehensive political dialogue to break the cycle of violence.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa announced the formation of a special investigative committee composed of prominent judges and human rights advocates to report on individuals responsible for crimes and violations in order that they could be held accountable.
He announced the formation of a civil peace committee tasked with engaging members of the Alawite community along the coast to reassure them of their equal status in society. He said that military operations against remnants of the former regime would persist until all of them were apprehended and unauthorised weapons eradicated from Syrian territory.
Syrian commentator Fayez Sara said that “there are three factors behind the eruption of armed violence on the coast by remnants of the A-Assad regime. The first is the security forces’ pursuit of criminals affiliated with the regime in an effort that many Syrians insist must continue.”
“The second factor is the poor living conditions many Syrian people are enduring as a result of the devastation left by the Al-Assad regime after 15 years of war and persecution, which crippled the state’s institutions and inflicted immense suffering through killings, arrests, displacement, and impoverishment.”
The third factor “is the efforts of Al-Assad’s remaining militias to instigate chaos in order to pave the way for Iran to reassert its influence in Syria, either through collaboration with Al-Assad himself or by exploiting factions of his remaining loyalists.”
The Syrian coastal region is a highly sensitive area that serves as a stronghold of the Al-Assad regime’s security and military personnel, who are held responsible for massacres, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The instigators of the violence in the coastal area belong to the Alawite sect, and the state has repeated its assurances that there will be no collective punishments. The government has pledged that only senior officers proven to have committed war crimes will be held accountable.
No harm has befallen the Alawite community during the three months since the new government assumed power in Damascus. Nevertheless, many Alawites remain apprehensive, fearing acts of retribution and the possibility that some may fail to distinguish between those who were complicit in the past regime’s atrocities and those who played no role in the 15-year conflict.
Over the past three months, some remnants of the deposed regime have clung to the belief that the Alawite sect’s dominance over the government, security apparatus, military, and state institutions in Syria can be restored.
Syrian analyst Said Moqbil said that “loyalists to the fallen regime fail to grasp the reality that Syria today belongs to all Syrians, not to a single ruling clique as it did for 54 years.”
“The Syrian people are striving to build a modern state founded on the principles of equal citizenship and the respect for freedoms. The present regime is their protector, with Al-Sharaa having declared a general amnesty for regime loyalists and security forces from day one to ensure the protection of minorities, particularly the Alawites, under the strict directive that any assault on them would be met with severe punishment.”
“Al-Sharaa has demonstrated that his regime is the guarantee that extremist factions will not move into areas where minorities reside. It is time for these groups to realise that change has taken place in Syria and there is no going back. They have to acknowledge that peace and coexistence are the only viable path forward.”
Following the attacks, Al-Sharaa said that the Syrian people will not permit external forces to drag the country into civil war, a clear reference to those suspected of fuelling unrest along the coast, particularly Iran and Hizbullah, in addition to Kurdish factions in northeastern Syria, which resist integration into the army and government and have openly sought external support to bolster their position.
Although disturbances are expected to persist in the coming period, they are likely to remain contained. However, the continued flow of funds and weaponry from Lebanon to Syria’s coastal regions sustains the conditions for repeated attacks.
The Syrian people, who have endured 15 years of brutal conflict that has claimed over a million lives and inflicted catastrophic destruction requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction, are determined never to relive the horrors of the past.
Their aspiration is for civil peace and national unity. If the new regime can uphold its commitments by holding the perpetrators of the recent attacks accountable, ensure impartial security enforcement, and combat terrorism without overstepping certain boundaries, the long-cherished dream of peace and stability in Syria may at last be within reach.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 13 March, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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