Syria has imposed a curfew in the northwestern port town of Latakia and the port city of Tartous after fierce clashes between fighters linked to Syria's ousted leader Bashar al-Assad and government forces, the state news agency said early on Friday.
More than 70 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Syria in the fighting, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday.
"More than 70 killed and dozens wounded and captured in bloody clashes and ambushes on the Syrian coast between members of the Ministry of Defense and Interior and militants from the defunct regime's army," the Observatory said in a post on X.
It said earlier that fighting Thursday between government forces and Assad loyalists had killed 48 people in the coastal town of Jableh and adjacent villages, saying they were "the most violent attacks against the new authorities since Assad was toppled" in December.
The overall toll during this week's unrest was not immediately clear.
Pro-Assad fighters killed 16 security personnel while 28 fighters aligned with the ousted president and four civilians were also killed, the Observatory said Thursday.
The earlier fighting was in the Mediterranean coastal province of Latakia, the heartland of Assad's Alawite minority who were considered bastions of support during his rule.
Mustafa Kneifati, a security official in Latakia, said that in "a well-planned and premeditated attack, several groups of Assad militia remnants attacked our positions and checkpoints," targeting patrols in the Jableh area.
The attacks resulted in "numerous martyrs and injured among our forces", he added without providing the number of casualties.
Kneifati said security forces would "work to eliminate their presence".
"We will restore stability to the region and protect the property of our people," he declared.
The Observatory said most of the security personnel killed were from the former opposition stronghold of Idlib in the northwest.
During the operation, security forces captured and arrested a former head of air force intelligence, one of the Assad family's most trusted security agencies, state news agency SANA reported.
"Our forces in the city of Jableh managed to arrest the criminal General Ibrahim Huweija," SANA said.
"He is accused of hundreds of assassinations during the era of the criminal Hafez al-Assad," Bashar al-Assad's father and predecessor.
