DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.
Assad fled Syria after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell on December 8, ending his clan’s five-decade rule.
After 13 years of civil war sparked by Assad’s crackdown on democracy protests, Syria’s new leaders from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) face the monumental task of safeguarding the multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic country from further collapse.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim jihadist group, HTS has moderated its rhetoric and vowed to ensure protection for minorities, including the Alawite community from which Assad hails.
With 500,000 dead in the war and more than 100,000 missing, the new authorities have also pledged justice for the victims of abuses under the deposed ruler.
On Thursday, state news agency SANA said security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad militias in the western province of Tartus, “neutralising a certain number” of armed men.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, three gunmen linked with Assad’s government were killed in the operation.
It comes a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes in the same province when forces tried to arrest an Assad-era officer, according to the Observatory.
The Britain-based monitor said the wanted man, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, was a military justice official who had “issued death sentences and arbitrary judgements against thousands” of detainees at the notorious Saydnaya prison complex.
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.
During the offensive that precipitated Assad’s ousting, rebels flung open the doors of prisons and detention centres around the country, letting out thousands of people.
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