Syrian forces loyal to the country’s new administration intensified their combing operations in the country’s coastal region on Saturday, as a deadline for officers and soldiers from the former Assad regime to hand in their weapons passed.
’s Al-Watan newspaper, which is now close to the Syrian authorities, reported security sources as saying, “The deadline given to remnants of the regime to surrender their weapons ended on Saturday. Anyone who keeps their weapon after today is breaking the law.”
The sources added that the new Syrian authorities’ military operations administration had begun “a wide-ranging security operation against remnants of the ousted throughout Syrian territory”.
Operations however seem to be concentrated on the Syrian coast, a stronghold of the former regime.
A Syrian security source told Al-Jazeera that the military operations administration had set up checkpoints surrounding the Russian Hemeimim military base in Tartous province. Russia was a key backer of the deposed Assad regime.
An Al-Jazeera correspondent said that the purpose of the checkpoints was to search cars entering and leaving the base, after reports that officers of the former regime had fled to the Russian base.
Russia has withdrawn some of its troops in northern Syria but says that the fate of the Hemeimim air and naval bases is still “under discussion”.
The Syrian official SANA news agency reported that some regime officers had been detained near the coastal city of Latakia.
“Some remants of Assad’s militias and a group of suspects were arrested in the Satmarkhu area near Latakia,” it said, adding that weapons and ammunition were seized and the operation was still in progress.
Troops from the Interior Ministry were also deployed heavily in the coastal town of Banias on Saturday, in order to capture elements associated with the Assad regime.
Syrian authorities said that they had received reports from local people that there were “suspicious movements” by “remnants of the former regime” in the area.
On Wednesday 14 Syrian police officers were killed in Tartous in an ambush by suspected regime loyalists.
The attack followed protests by members of the Alawi community, to which deposed President Bashar al-Assad belonged, after video emerged of some rebel fighters vandalising a Alawi shrine in Aleppo.
The video is over three weeks old and the new authorities said they would hold the fighters accountable.