DOZENS of people have been killed after soldiers loyal to ousted tyrant Bashar al-Assad launched a surprise ambush on the army of Syria’s new rulers. Ongoing clashes between the two sides

Residents described shootings outside their homes and bodies in the streets in Syria’s worst unrest since Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. More than 1,000 people have been killed since Thursday, a war monitor said.

According to a Syrian war monitor, the latest executions in Latakia is among the highest death tolls in the war-torn country since 2011. Most of the civilians belonged to the minority Islamic Alawite

Under Mr Assad Syria sank from middle-income status to abject poverty. Women saw branches off trees for heating. Children scavenge in dumpsters for food. Men pull copper wire from buildings and telecoms cables to sell. The government is broke and banks are running out of cash. “The economy is tanking,” says one of Mr Sharaa’s advisers.

The death toll from two days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has risen to more than 600, a war monitoring group said yesterday, making it one of the deadliest acts of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago.

Since Thursday, more than 1,000 people—including Christian minorities and Alawites, the sect to which Assad belongs—have been killed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and local reports.

Syria's leader on Sunday vowed accountability and an investigation after the killing of Alawite civilians triggered an international backlash against the worst violence since Bashar al-Assad's overthrow.

Gunmen and security forces linked to Syria's new Islamist rulers killed more than 340 people, the head of a war monitor said.