Syria has suffered its worst bloodshed since Bashar al-Assad was toppled from power, with more than 1,000 people reported killed in violence that has swept the coastal region since Thursday.

Syrian security forces deployed heavily in the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast on Saturday, after a war monitor reported that government and allied forces killed more than 500 civilians

In a gripping report by Rizik Alabi for The Media Line, Syria is once again consumed by violence as fighting between pro-Assad rebels and government security forces intensifies in the coastal province of Latakia.

Syria's interim President Ahmed Sharaa said mass killings of members of ousted President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect were a threat to his mission to unite the country, and promised to punish those responsible,

The death toll from two days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 600, a war monitoring group said Saturday.

In a speech broadcast on national TV and posted on social media, Sharaa, whose rebel movement toppled Bashar al-Assad in December, also promised to hunt down Assad loyalists. The fighting has also killed 231 members of the security forces and 250 pro-Assad fighters,