AP
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Clashes broke out on Syria’s coast between protesters from the Alawite religious minority and counterdemonstrators on Sunday, killing at the very least three individuals and injuring dozens of others, well being officers mentioned.
The clashes got here two days after a bombing at an Alawite mosque within the metropolis of Homs killed eight individuals and wounded 18 others during prayers.
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Thousands of protesters gathered within the coastal cities of Latakia and Tartous, and elsewhere. Officials have mentioned that preliminary investigations point out that explosive gadgets had been planted contained in the mosque in Homs, however authorities haven’t publicly recognized a suspect but in Friday’s bombing. Funerals for the dead had been held on Saturday.
A little bit-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed accountability for the assault in an announcement posted on its Telegram channel, by which it indicated that the assault supposed to focus on members of the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam whom hard-line Islamists think about to be apostates.
Sunday’s demonstrations had been known as for by Ghazal Ghazal, an Alawite sheikh residing exterior of Syria who heads a gaggle known as the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora.
An Associated Press photographer in Latakia noticed pro-government counterprotesters throw rocks on the Alawite demonstrators, whereas a gaggle of protesters beat a counterdemonstrator who crossed to their aspect. Security forces tried to interrupt up the 2 sides and fired into the air in an try and disperse them. Demonstrators had been injured within the scuffles, however it wasn’t instantly clear what number of.
Syria’s state-run tv reported that two members of the safety forces had been wounded within the space of Tartous after somebody threw a hand grenade at a police station, and vehicles belonging to safety forces had been set on fireplace in Latakia.
Later, state-run information company SANA reported {that a} member of the safety forces was killed by gunfire. Local well being officers mentioned that three individuals had been killed and 60 others wounded.
The nation has skilled a number of waves of sectarian clashes for the reason that fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning insurgent offensive in December 2024 that dropped at an finish almost 14 years of civil battle. Assad, an Alawite, fled the nation to Russia.
In March, an ambush carried out by Assad’s supporters in opposition to safety forces triggered days of violence that left lots of of individuals useless, most of them Alawites. Since then, though the state of affairs has calmed, Alawites have been focused sporadically in sectarian assaults. They have additionally complained of discrimination in opposition to them in public employment since Assad’s fall and of younger Alawite males detained with out fees.
During the rein of the Assad dynasty, Alawites had been overrepresented in authorities jobs and within the military and safety forces.
Government officers condemned Friday’s assault and promised to carry perpetrators accountable, however haven’t but introduced any arrests.