Agencies DAMASCUS

Syria’s new authorities on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a coastal region where 14 policemen were killed a day before, vowing to pursue “remnants” of the ousted Bashar al-Assad government accused of the attack, state media reported.

The violence in Tartus province, part of the coastal region that is home to many members of Assad’s Alawite sect, has marked the deadliest challenge yet to the Sunni Islamist-led authorities that swept him from power on December 8.

The new administration’s security forces launched the operation to “control security, stability, and civil peace and to pursue the remnants of Assad’s militias in the woods and hills” in Tartus’s rural areas, state news agency SANA reported.

Members of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shia Islam, wielded huge sway in Assad-led Syria, dominating security forces he used against his opponents during the 13-year-long civil war as well as to crush dissent during decades of bloody oppression by his police state.