The clashes, which a war monitoring group said had already killed 1,000 people, mostly civilians, continued for a fourth day in Assad’s coastal heartland.
Interim president Sharaa urged Syrians not to let sectarian tensions further destabilise the country.
“Rest assured about Syria, this country has the characteristics for survival ... What is currently happening in Syria is within the expected challenges.”
Assad’s overthrow ended decades of dynastic rule by his family marked by severe repression and a devastating civil war that began as a peaceful uprising in 2011.
GROWING INSURGENCY
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said on Saturday more than 1,000 people had been killed in the two days of fighting. It said 745 were civilians, 125 members of the Syrian security forces and 148 fighters loyal to Assad.
Abdulrahman told Reuters on Sunday that the death toll was one of the highest since a chemical weapons attack by Assad’s forces in 2013 which killed some 1,400 people in a Damascus suburb.
HIT-AND-RUN ATTACKS, REVENGE KILLINGS
The attacks spiralled into revenge killings when thousands of armed supporters of Syria’s new leaders from across the country descended to the coastal areas to support beleaguered forces of the new administration.
Clashes continued overnight in several towns where armed groups fired on security forces and ambushed cars on highways leading to main towns in the coastal area, a Syrian security source told Reuters on Sunday.
They damaged a main power station that cut electricity across parts of the province, while a main water pumping station and several fuel depots were disrupted.
In Latakia, police mounted new checkpoints inside the city. Two residents said sounds of gunfire and artillery could be heard on the outskirts of the coastal city.
The Damascus authorities were also sending reinforcements to beef up their security presence in the mountainous province, where thick forests in rugged terrain were helping the anti-government fighters, another police source said.
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