In an unrelated incident in Tartus province, a stronghold of deposed ruler Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reported deadly clashes over the attempted arrest of a former official.
The Observatory said 14 security personnel of Syria’s new authorities and three armed men were killed in clashes in Tartus province when forces sought to arrest an Assad-era officer linked to the notorious Saydnaya prison.
In the central city of Homs, where protesters took to the streets earlier over the shrine attack video, the Britain-based Observatory said one demonstrator was killed and five others wounded “after security forces… opened fire to disperse” the crowd.
The Observatory reported thousands-strong demonstrations in the coastal cities of Tartus and Latakia, also an Alawite stronghold, as well as other areas, including Assad’s hometown of Qardaha.
Witnesses confirmed to AFP that demonstrations broke out in Tartus and Latakia and nearby Jableh, with some estimating the number of protesters in the thousands.
The protests are the largest by the Alawites since Assad’s fall earlier this month, and come a day after hundreds of Syrians protested in the capital Damascus against the torching of a Christmas tree.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers have sought to assure religious and ethnic minorities that their rights would be upheld.
