BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 11 (UPI) -- Syria's fragile transition from decades of the [Assad](https://www.upi.com/topic/Assad/) family's brutal rule has been greatly shaken with an outburst of sectarian retribution and killings, posing a serious challenge to the new leadership led by Ahmad Sharaa and raising fears of civil war, disintegration and partition.
The new wave of sectarian violence broke out Thursday when pro-Assad Alawite gunmen ambushed security forces of the transitional government, attacked government institutions and raided several hospitals in the coastal region -- the heartland of the Alawite minority.
While government forces were trying to rush reinforcements to the area, a former general in the Assad's Army, Giath Dalah, issued a statement announcing the formation of the "Military Council for the Liberation of Syria," pledging to overthrow the "new regime" and liberating the country from "all terrorist occupying forces."
Dalah was a commander in the notorious Fourth Division battalion headed by Maher Assad, the brother of President Bashar Assad, ousted Dec. 8 by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS. It was led by Sharaa, then known as Abu Mohammad al Jolani.
The attacks, which appeared to be well-coordinated and planned, quickly turned into fierce clashes with government security forces and thousands of fighters from loyal groups who rushed from various regions for support.
Soon after, reports of summary executions and revenge killings carried out in predominantly Alawite cities and villages began to surface. Entire families, including women and children, were reportedly killed; houses were raided, looted and set on fire, while thousands managed to flee, seeking refuge at an airbase controlled by Russian forces in the area or by crossing into northern Lebanon.
Brutal videos and images have been circulating on social media, showing bodies in the streets, with weeping women checking them, and gunmen shooting several people at point-blank range and forcing others to crawl on their knees and bark. Some of the videos included atrocities committed in the past few days, while many were fake.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, some 1,225 civilians have been killed so far.
"They include three to four Christians and some 20 Sunni Muslims, and all the rest are Alawites," Abdel Rahman told UPI in a telephone interview. "In some villages, some killed civilians were dressed in military clothes and buried to make it appear as though they were fighters."
Abdel Rahman said 231 people from the government security forces and 250 Alawite insurgent gunmen also were killed during the fighting.
As the clashes stopped Sunday, government forces redeployed in the coastal region and called on the residents to return to their homes.
But, Abdel Rahman said, the armed groups who carried out the sectarian killings and were ordered to withdraw "remain in most of the areas, and the tens of thousands of inhabitants who fled are afraid to return."
The recent violence has been the worst since Assad's ouster and the rather smooth non-violent takeover by Sharaa in December. But the Syrian Observatory counted some 600 revengeful acts during the past three months that were ignored.
"What led to this \[last week's\] explosion is the accumulation of violations that some Alawite insurgents exploited," Abdel Rahman said.
Military analyst and retired Army Gen. Mohammad Abbas said Dalah's insurgency plan to overthrow Sharaa and regain control of the country was "a stupid idea," as he gave the "murderers and criminals the pretext" to hit back at the Alawite minority community.
The Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam, makes up 10% to 12% of the country's population, which is mostly Sunni Muslim.
The emerging insurgency had apparently little chance of success, regardless of who was behind it or supporting it, not excluding Bashar or Maher Assad.
"Who wants to liberate Syria from the new regime should have behind him forces much bigger than a few hundred gunmen carrying machine guns with no effect in the battlefield," Abbas told UPI in a telephone interview from Damascus.
Dalah could not achieve any strategic or tactical goal, Abbas said. "At the end, he fell into a trap."
When Assad was overthrown, many expected "rivers of blood" in reaction to decades of oppression under the Baath rule and atrocities committed by the regime during 14 years of civil war.
"If we enter the cycle of revenge and vengeance today, Syria will never be able to recover," Abbas said, emphasizing that only "reconciliation and forgiveness" could save the country.
Sharaa, who adopted a more moderate rhetoric and distanced himself from his jihadist past when he took power, has promised to unite the divided country, lead it to an inclusive political future and consolidate security.
His efforts were marred by the recent sectarian killings, prompting him to quickly form committees to investigate and hold to account those responsible for the emerging violence.
Sharaa's main challenge was not only to ease the fears of the minorities and protect them, but also to control the radical groups, some of which carried out the fresh revenge killings against the Alawite.
"Sharaa tried to unify all armed forces in the country under the umbrella of the Defense Ministry, but each group still has its own commander," Mohanad Hage Ali, an analyst and fellow at the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Center, told UPI.
Hage Ali warned that if Syria's new leader is unable to control his groups, "that would be a catastrophe."
"At the end, when you enter areas where so many massacres were committed, you leave behind lots of grudges, and that could lay the basis for long-term rebellion," he said.
Hage Ali said that Sharaa failed to "work on a real transitional justice," noting that "it is hard to see today one group entering an Alawite region and not commit violations."
Abdel Kader Azzouz, a professor of International Relations at Damascus University and adviser to the Syrian Prime Minister's Office, emphasized that the most dangerous challenge new authorities face is the fragile security situation and the issue of the state's monopoly on weapons.
Azzouz denounced the crimes committed by "uncontrolled elements who feel that they are above the law and could not be held accountable."
"What could prevent that is to make Syria a state for all regardless of identities and ideologies; to assure all the country's components by taking actions and launching a political process that excludes no one," he told UPI during a telephone interview from Damascus.
He explained that the fragile security situation, along with the deteriorating living and economic conditions "undoubtedly open the doors for actions by armed groups," with regional and international powers seeking to turn Syria "into an arena of conflict and influence."
Sharaa's efforts to unify his fractured country have apparently started to bear fruit.
In a surprise move Monday, Sharaa signed a breakthrough deal with the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces to integrate its military and civilian institutions into the Syrian state and cease all hostilities.
A similar deal was reportedly reached with a Druze delegation from the southern province of Sweida on Tuesday.
"But what Sharaa should do first is criminalize hate speech. ... Otherwise, we would have achieved nothing," Abdel Rahman said.
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