Syria's leader Ahmed Sharaa has vowed to prosecute the perpetrators of brutal clashes pitting loyalists to ousted President Bashar al-Assad against the country's new Islamist rulers. He vowed to hold accountable anyone who overstepped their authority, Reuters reported.
In a speech broadcast on national television and posted on social media, Sharaa, whose rebel movement toppled Assad in December, accused Assad loyalists and unnamed foreign forces of trying to foment unrest.
"We will hold accountable, with full determination, anyone who is involved in the bloodshed of civilians, abuses civilians, exceeds the authority of the state or uses power for personal gain. "No one will be above the law," Sharaa added in a video speech, after earlier calling for national unity.
"Today, as we find ourselves at this critical moment, we find ourselves facing a new danger - attempts by the remnants of the former regime and their foreign backers to foment new discord and drag our country into a civil war aimed at dividing it and destroying its unity and stability," he said.
Interim President Sharaa's office said it had formed an independent committee to investigate the clashes and killings on both sides. The Syrians released graphic videos of executions by militants. Reuters could not immediately confirm the videos.
The clashes, which a war monitor says have killed 1,000 people, mostly civilians, are continuing into a fourth day in Assad's coastal heartland.
The commander-in-chief of a Syrian Kurdish militia, whose forces are locked in a separate battle with Turkey, has previously blamed Turkish-backed Islamist factions for some of the most disturbing violence: the reported executions of civilians belonging to Assad's Alawite sect. Turkey did not immediately respond to the accusations.
A Syrian security source said earlier that the pace of fighting had slowed around the cities of Latakia, Jabla and Baniyas as forces searched the surrounding mountainous areas where some 5,000 pro-Assad rebels are hiding.