Syrian officials step up pursuing Assad loyalists

A man hands in his firearms at a reconciliation center in Damascus, Syria, last week. The centers give military conscripts a chance to gain new identification documents and sever ties with the former regime. Nicole Tung — The New York Times

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By Adam Rasgon

The New York Times

Syria’s new administration has stepped up its campaign to track down and arrest members of the ousted Assad dictatorship, signaling that it would act with a heavy hand against people it claims are challenging its ability to impose law and order.

Sana, the state-run Syrian news agency, reported Saturday that “a number of remnants of the Assad militias” had been arrested in the coastal Latakia region in western Syria. Weapons and ammunitions were confiscated, the report added.

The new administration, which has tried to assert authority over Syria since an alliance of rebels toppled President Bashar Assad three weeks ago, has indicated that pursuing loyalists of the Assad dictatorship who are undermining its authority is a top priority.

But a human rights organization has raised alarms about the way the transitional government was going after Assad loyalists, saying it was carrying out arbitrary arrests of supporters of the old regime.

Over the past few days, Sana has also reported that government security forces were pursuing members of the Assad regime in the regions of Tartus, Homs and Hama.

On Wednesday, an attempt to arrest Mohammed Kanjou al-Hassan, the former director of military justice under Assad, set off deadly clashes in the Tartus area — part of the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority. Security forces were ambushed by loyalists of the former government in the area, according to the Britain-based war monitoring group, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Fourteen members of the government forces were killed, according to Mohammed Abdel Rahman, Syria’s interim interior minister.

Though some reports have said al-Hassan later was arrested, media officials in Syria’s transitional government had not confirmed that as of Saturday.

The media office of Syria’s interim Interior Ministry said security forces were pursuing members of the Assad regime “to secure” the country’s territory, suggesting they were undermining the security situation. It said the campaign was launched only after loyalists of the former government had failed “to hand over their weapons and settle their affairs” within a specific time frame. On Saturday, Lebanese authorities repatriated 70 Syrian officers and soldiers who served in Assad’s military after they illegally entered Lebanon on Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory.

Former Syrian officials and military personnel have fled Syria for neighboring Lebanon and Iraq in hopes of avoiding arrest or retribution.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, said he was receiving reports from his group’s activists in Syria that government security forces were carrying out random arrests of supporters of Assad’s regime, while largely failing to take action against top military leaders.