Hundreds — possibly thousands — have been killed in Syria amid reports of massacres and executions by both pro-government and opposing forces, creating the biggest challenge Syria's President has faced since toppling Bashar al-Assad in December.
Attacks on the new government's security services have been on the rise for weeks, but exploded into serious violence after gunmen loyal to Assad launched a series of seemingly coordinated attacks in Syria's coastal region beginning on Thursday.
WARNING: This story contains graphic details.
Syria's coast is home to its Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam that makes up about 10 per cent of the population.
The Assad family are members of the sect, and during their long and brutal rule they installed fellow Alawites into senior positions in the civil service, military and security services, which were responsible for grave human rights abuses against Syria's people over decades.
The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, as is Syria's new president, Ahmed Al Sharaa.
In response to the attacks by Assad loyalists, the interim government has deployed thousands of security forces to the coast.
Among them were factions allied with the government, and armed civilians who poured into Alawite neighbourhoods and villages.
Residents have testified to mass killing and executions of civilians.
Estimates of the death toll vary wildly because that part of the country has been largely sealed off and access for journalists has been restricted.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, which documents unlawful killings, pro-Assad gunmen have killed 211 civilians and 172 members of the security forces, while the pro-government forces and factions have killed 396 people — including civilians.
The ABC was able to enter the coastal city of Tartous on Sunday, where some of the fighting began.
[map]Remnant Assad forces accused of killing civilians
Driving north towards the coast, the highway was almost empty.
Troops at checkpoints checked cars for weapons and examined ID cards of those trying to pass through.
People without civilian ID cards were suspected to be former members of the regime security forces.
Standing on the edge of the waterfront, one man asked us what we were doing — saying there was fighting still going on just 40 kilometres up the road and that it wasn't safe to be there.
We met up with government minders who said we couldn't stay long.
They said while most of the city was secure, pro-Assad forces could attack anywhere at any time.
They let us talk to Saleh Fares, who stopped in a tow truck with his bullet riddled Hyundai SUV on the tray.
A journalist for a local newspaper, he said he was driving further north to cover reports of killings in villages when he was attacked by the Assad regime's remnant forces.
"The place where I was targeted, they killed eight civilians," he told the ABC.
"Some of them were alive, and begging to be spared. They were shooting at them while they were saying 'save us, save us'."
He said they took him hostage and held him for three hours.
"When they took me into the building, the whole path was covered in blood,"
He said he escaped when government forces fought off the regime loyalists.
"I mean, we survived by a miracle," he said.
He suspects there are mass graves there.
"There were excavators working, they were digging," he said.
Mass graves and piles of bodies
It's impossible to know exactly what has gone on in these places because the authorities are not letting journalists in.
They say it's unsafe, but it's also unclear if they don't want the world to see the horrors that have allegedly unfolded — possibly by their own troops or allied factions.
For days now, gruesome, unverified videos have emerged claiming to be of the atrocities.
They show executions by unidentified gunmen.
Some of their victims can be seen begging to be spared before being shot.
Others were forced to crawl on their hands and knees and bark like dogs before being killed.
There are photos of alleged mass graves being dug and piles of bodies in the streets.
In recent days, we've been getting a constant stream of messages from terrified Alawites in the neighbourhood villages that we can't access.
Gunmen killing people hiding in homes
A man from Baniyas described intense fighting beginning on Thursday night.
On Friday, when military reinforcements arrived with heavy weaponry, the gunfire stopped.
"We thought it was over. We were wrong," he wrote.
On Saturday morning, from the home of a Sunni neighbour who was sheltering him and three other Alawite families, he told the ABC that armed men had begun going house to house in his neighbourhood executing Alawites.
"If we stayed 30 minutes longer, you wouldn't be talking to me. All of our neighbours were killed," he said.
He witnessed one execution and said there were hundreds of bodies in the street, among them three members of his family.
They were his cousin, a schoolteacher, and two of his uncles, both aged in their 70s.
"My three relatives were were taken up the roof and shot with all other men in their building," he said.
When asked who was responsible, he said the gunmen were general security, military, and armed volunteers.
The ABC has not been able to verify their identities or organisations.
"We are alive but surrounded by terror" said a man who had fled his village in the mountains and spent the night sleeping in the fields.
"There are families in villages next to us who are still in the fields because their homes were burned and they are afraid of the return of the factions."
The killings put an enormous amount of pressure on Syria's new president, Ahmad Al Sharaa.
Syria's Defence Force has put out a statement saying their operations along the coast are over, but that is just one arm of a very disparate group of security services and individuals that have allegedly been involved.
Al Sharaa has vowed to punish those responsible — even his own allies.
He's admitted that "many parties entered the Syrian coast and many violations occurred," and that it had become an opportunity for revenge after many years of grievances.
Despite his admissions, this is a huge test for him, and suggests he has limited control over the factions and armed groups that helped him topple Assad, and possibly his own base.
Minority groups and the international community have been looking for evidence that he truly believes his promise to create an inclusive Syria.
The lifting of international sanctions and the removal of members of his government from terror lists relies on it.
The gruesome events of this week and his inability to stop them will give them nothing but doubt.
In a sign, however, that Al Sharaa was moving towards his stated aims, his new government on Monday signed a deal to integrate Kurdish forces and the autonomous region in which they're based into the Syrian state.
[Youtube: The World]
