A monitor of Syria's conflict said Friday that 11 civilians from the Alawite minority had been killed in security raids in the center of the country over the past 24 hours.
The killings follow a wave of sectarian bloodshed last month, the worst since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad, with massacres taking place largely in the Alawite coastal heartland over several days.
"At least 11 Alawite civilians, including university students, were killed in Homs province over the past 24 hours after raids conducted by the security forces" and associated groups, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday, characterizing the killings as "sectarian."
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, said three of those killed had "died under torture" after being detained by security forces.
Homs province has seen "an increase in killings and violations amid security chaos and a lack of accountability," according to the Observatory.
Separately, the city of Homs saw clashes on Thursday as security forces sought to arrest a former brigadier general in Assad's military, Ali Shalhoub, also an Alawite.
State news agency SANA, citing a security source in the area, said that "heavy clashes erupted between the criminal Shalhoub" and security forces "during an attempt to arrest him."
After several security personnel were wounded, orders were given for Shalhoub to be "neutralized," the report said.
The Observatory said Shalhoub and a security force member were killed.
Security operations and raids in search of wanted individuals and Assad-era army officers in several parts of Syria have sparked fear among the civilian population, according to the Observatory.
Many from the Alawite minority, to which the Assad family belongs, have feared reprisals for his brutal rule.
During last month's violence, security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, the Observatory has said.
According to the United Nations human rights office, perpetrators raided houses, asking if residents were Alawite or Sunni Muslim before either killing or sparing them, with men shot dead in front of their families.
The government of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled Assad, accused Assad loyalists of sparking the violence by attacking security forces.
Sharaa set up a one-month inquiry into the killings in mid-March, but the commission's deadline has since been extended by three months.
AFP
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