Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media

DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday, with a monitor saying targets include protest organisers from the Alawite minority of the former president.

“The Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the Military Operations Department, begins a wide-scale combing operation in neighbourhoods of Homs city,” state news agency SANA said quoting a security official.

The statement said the targets were “war criminals and those involved in crimes who refused to hand over their weapons and go to the settlement centres” but also “fugitives from justice, in addition to hidden ammunition and weapons”.

Since rebels seized power in a lightning offensive last month, the transitional government has been registering former conscripts and soldiers and asking them to hand over their weapons.

“The Ministry of Interior calls on the residents of the neighbourhoods of Wadi al-Dhahab, Akrama not to go out to the streets, remain home, and fully cooperate with our forces,” the statement said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, told AFP the two districts are majority-Alawite — the community from which ousted President Bashar al-Assad hails.

“The ongoing campaign aims to search for former Shabiha and those who organised or participated in the Alawite demonstrations last week, which the administration considered as incitement against” its authority, he said.

Shabiha were notorious pro-government militias tasked with helping to crush dissent under Assad.

On December 25, thousands protested in several areas of Syria after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country’s north.

AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or the date of the incident but the interior ministry said the video was “old and dates to the time of the liberation” of Aleppo in December.

Since seizing power, Syria’s new leadership has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they will not be harmed.

Alawites fear backlash against their community both as a religious minority and because of its long association with the Assad family.

Last week, security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad fighters in the western province of Tartus, in the Alawite heartland, state media had said, a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes there.