Hundreds of Alawite civilians have been killed, kidnapped or have disappeared during a rebel offensive on President Bashar al-Assad’s heartland province of Latakia, local residents have reported.
Syrian rebels have pushed deep into the coastal Alawite stronghold for the first time, seizing a string of villages in a campaign which, locals have warned, threatens to open the area up to full-blown sectarian war.
„We are still finding people who were killed in their homes, and bodies left in bushes,“ said Sheikh Mohammed Reda Hatem, an Alawite religious leader in Latakia. „Until now 150 Alawites from the villages have been kidnapped. There are women and children among them. We have lost all contact with them.“
After suffering a string of recent military defeats, in the central Syrian province of Homs, the rebels were looking to hit Assad „where it hurts most“, opposition sources said.
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