BEIRTU, Lebanon: Six people were killed on Tuesday in Syria’s central Homs province, a war monitor said, as security forces launched a sweep of the area.
The security forces were operating in the area around the village of Ghour Al-Gharbiya in western Homs “against the remaining militias supporting” ousted president Bashar Assad, the official news agency SANA reported.
The operation also targeted drug traffickers and smugglers, SANA said, citing a security source.
An “arms depot and munitions belonging to the ousted regime” were found, it added, reporting that violent clashes had broken out.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people had been killed in the Shiite-majority village, which lies close to the border with Lebanon.
The Observatory later specified that among those killed, two were “armed individuals” who died during clashes with security forces, while the other four were “civilians executed by local gunmen who entered the town” alongside the security forces.
Tanks were also deployed to the area, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the village “hosted local groups close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” adding that those groups had left the area after the fall of Assad on December 8.
Hezbollah was one of Assad’s key backers in the nearly 14-year conflict that broke out with the former president’s violent repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The Observatory said dozens were arrested during the latest security sweep. Recent weeks have seen widespread arrests of those accused of loyalty to Assad.
Islamist-led rebels forced Assad from power last month after a lightning offensive that saw them capture swathes of the country in 11 days.
Rights groups have reported violations by the new security authorities, including summary executions and the seizure of people’s homes.
The new authorities, however, have sought to reassure minorities in particular that their rights will be safeguarded.