Rebuilding Security in New Syria: Week 13

Tracking the spread of new security forces and security incidents in post-Assad Syria from March 3 to March 9

Announcements of security deployments mostly in western Syria, with an emphasis on the minority regions. Content is categorized as deployment, crime, statement, arrest, operation. This weekly update is intended to provide base level data for more holistic research into the rebuilding of the security and governance structures of post-Assad Syria. Direct links to primary sources provided throughout.

This week was defined by the massive surge in violence in Syria’s coast. Ex-regime insurgents had gradually increased their attacks against security forces in Latakia and Tartous over the past weeks attempting to trigger a retaliatory security operation in which government forces might kill civilians - this could then be used to further spread anti-government and international intervention claims within the population. An ambush emanating from Latakia’s Datour neighborhood on March 3 nearly succeeded in this, as the security forces’ response left at least 8 men dead with many claims that most if not all were civilians.

On March 6, a police unit carrying an arrested local was ambushed by a regime checkpoint outside Beit Ana, in the Latakia countryside. According to a local I spoke with, insurgents then brought trucks of weapons into the village and called on young Alawites to volunteer to fight the government. Across the coast, insurgent cells activated and began launching attacks. Most of Baniyas city and parts of Jableh were quickly captured and dozens of General Security and police officers were killed by that evening. That night, Sunni groups mobilized across the country, some were members of the Ministry of Defense, others independent armed factions, and still others were simply armed civilians.

These groups flocked to the coast overnight and by the morning of March 7 reports were emerging of widespread massacres, particularly in Baniyas and Jableh where entire Alawite families were executed inside their homes. As insurgents were pushed back into the countryside, so were the violations. March 8 and 9 saw many reported executions and looting in rural villages, including several filmed instances where dozens of Alawite men were executed in their village. The author heard first-hand accounts where men were stopped by armed factions, asked their sect, and executed if Alawite. Most of these crimes appear to have been committed by armed factions and army units, with the overstretched and more professional General Security units unable to prevent random Sunnis from entering every village. However, by March 10 the situation was beginning to calm down again as the independent factions were forces out of the coast and General Security and core Ministry of Defense army units began taking over most of the security responsibilities.

• Damascus

• Coast

• Homs

• Hama