Fourteen members of Syrian security forces were killed and at least ten wounded in an ambush involving troops still loyal to ousted president Bashar al-Assad.
The incident, the first serious challenge to the new regime in Damascus, took place in Tartus province, a pro-Assad stronghold dominated by the ex-dictator’s Alawite religious minority.
It came after police attempted to arrest a figure linked to the notorious Sednaya Prison and death camp nicknamed ‘the human slaughterhouse’.
Three members of a militia group were also killed in the incident in Khirbet al-Maaza on Christmas Day, with ten police officers injured, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The group added that forces had sought to arrest a man who was among ‘those responsible for the crimes of the Sednaya prison’.
He was identified as Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, ‘an officer in the former regime forces who held the position of director of the military justice department and field court chief’.
The observatory said Hassan had ‘issued death sentences and arbitrary judgments against thousands of prisoners’.
But according to the group, which relies on a number of sources within Syria, clashes erupted after ‘a number of residents refused to allow their houses to be searched’.
Fourteen members of Syrian security forces were killed and at least ten wounded in an ambush
Rebel fighters sit in their vehicle on a road in the capital Damascus on December 12
The new Syrian interior minister, Mohammed Abdel Rahman, said in a statement: ‘Fourteen interior ministry personnel were killed and ten others wounded after… a treacherous ambush by remnants of the criminal regime’.
He claimed the security forces were attacked ‘while performing their tasks of maintaining security and safety’.
Mr Rahman warned that the new regime would punish anyone who dared ‘to undermine Syria’s security or endanger the lives of its citizens’.
The doors of Sednaya Prison – as with others around the country – were flung open after rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ousted Assad earlier this month.
Elsewhere in Syria, demonstrations and an overnight curfew marked the most widespread unrest since the removal of Assad – partly fuelled by social media claims that a fire had started in an Alawite shrine in Aleppo.
In one incident, in Homs, one demonstrator was killed and five wounded when security forces opened fire to ‘disperse’
the crowd. Assad’s departure came 13 years after a revolt against his rule, part of the Arab Spring protests against authoritarian regimes which took place across the Middle East in 2010 and 2011.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad attends the Arab League Emergency Summit, Cairo, October 22, 2000
The rebellion resulted in a civil war which included the establishment of the terrorist-controlled Islamic State in parts of the country.
Assad fled to Moscow as rebel forces swept into Damascus on December 8. Last week he claimed he only fled Syria at ‘the very last moment’ after standing alongside his soldiers on the battlefield.
He said he had been ‘on the front lines, just metres from terrorists in the most dangerous and intense battlefields’ when Russia ordered him to leave. Vladimir Putin, who was a key ally of the old regime, smuggled Assad and his family out of Syria following the lightning offensive.
The country’s new prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, has urged the millions of Syrian refugees around the world to return home and help rebuild.
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