Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has said that he will punish “even among those closest” to him for participating in mass killings in the country’s coastal region days ago.
Hundreds are reported to have died in the violence, including members of the Alawite minority, as well as security forces who were ambushed by apparent supporters of the former President Bashar al-Assad. Security forces are accused of carrying out “revenge” attacks after the ambushes carried out against them.
“We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us,” al-Sharaa said in an interview with the Reuters news agency on Monday.
“Many parties entered the Syrian coast and many violations occurred,” al-Sharaa added. “It became an opportunity for revenge.”
Al-Assad is an Alawite, and many leading members of his regime, which was toppled in December, were from the minority, with much of the country’s Sunni majority feeling disenfranchised by a state noted for its mass killing of Syrians affiliated with the opposition.
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