March 8 (UPI) -- More than 1,000 have died since Thursday amid fighting between Syrian government forces and supporters of former President Bashar al-Assad, a monitoring organization announced.
Most of those killed, 745, are members of the Alawite religious minority and died in close-range shootings, the U.K.-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights told media.
The shooting victims include many women and children.
Another 125 members of government security forces and 148 pro-Assad militants also were killed in the fighting.
The Alawites are a religious minority group located in the Levant area of Syria along the Mediterranean Coast.
Assad is a member of the Alawism religion, which accepts the five pillars of Islam but interprets them differently than other Muslim religious organizations.
Sunni Islamist militants overthrew the Assad regime in December and made Ahmed al-Sharaa the nation's interim president.
Sharaa also is known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and leads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces that overthrew Assad.
He also was a member of al-Qaeda and fought in the Iraq War but in recent years has tried distance himself from the terrorist organization, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Sharaa delivered a televised speech on Friday night and ordered government security forces to "ensure no excessive or unjustified responses occur" while pursuing those who are accused of killing security forces members, CNN reported.
The killings mostly have occurred in Latakia, Tartous and Hama and the nearby countryside along Syria's Mediterranean Coast.
Assad is in Russia and has not commented on the deadly fighting in Syria.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned the violence and urged both sides to stop fighting in order to protect civilians.
Syria has been in a state of civil war since the so-called Arab Spring of 2011 that began as a peaceful uprising against the Assad regime but since has caused an estimated 300,000 deaths, the United Nations says.