This handout image launched by the Syrian Presidency on February 16, 2025 reveals Syria’s interim chief Ahmed al-Sharaa attending a gathering with officers and native leaders within the western coastal metropolis of Latakia. Agence France-Presse
DAMASCUS — Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Latakia and Tartus on Sunday, his workplace mentioned, making his first official journey to the coastal provinces previously generally known as strongholds of ousted ruler Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa met with “dignitaries and notables” throughout his go to, the Syrian presidency mentioned on Telegram.
It revealed photographs of Sharaa assembly with dozens of individuals, some apparently spiritual figures, within the two provinces’ capital cities.
READ: Former jihadist now Syria’s interim president
Earlier Sunday, Latakia province’s official Telegram channel revealed footage displaying hundreds of individuals gathered within the metropolis, some taking photographs, as Sharaa’s convoy handed by way of.
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Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the insurgent offensive that ousted Assad in December, and he was appointed interim president final month.
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Assad’s hometown is positioned in Latakia, which together with neighboring Tartus is residence to a lot of the nation’s Alawite group, a department of Shiite Islam to which Assad’s household belonged.
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Assad had offered himself as a protector of minorities in multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Syria, however largely concentrated energy within the palms of his fellow Alawites.
Latakia and Tartus are additionally residence to Assad ally Russia’s solely two army bases exterior the previous Soviet Union.
In line with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights battle monitor, Latakia noticed violence after Assad’s fall that has since eased considerably, although occasional assaults are nonetheless carried out on checkpoints.
State information company SANA, citing the inside ministry, mentioned Sunday {that a} safety patrol had been attacked within the province, wounding two patrol members and killing a lady.
Latakia has additionally seen reprisals in opposition to folks seen as linked to the previous authorities, although such incidents have additionally decreased lately, the Britain-based Observatory added.
Safety operations have beforehand been introduced within the province in pursuit of “remnants” of the ousted authorities’s forces.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman mentioned that “there are nonetheless hundreds of officers from the previous regime current in Latakia and who haven’t settled their standing” with the brand new authorities.
Sharaa’s go to may very well be a message that there’s “no chance for the regime of Bashar al-Assad to maneuver in Latakia or on the Syrian coast”, he instructed AFP.
Regardless of reassurances from Syria’s new authorities that minorities will likely be protected, members of the Alawite group particularly concern reprisals due to the minority’s hyperlink to the Assad clan.
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Sharaa’s go to adopted journeys to Idlib, the rebels’ former bastion, and Aleppo a day earlier.