HOMS (AP) – Syria’s new security forces deployed in tanks on Thursday in the city of Homs to search for militia members and former soldiers loyal to ousted President Bashar Assad who have refused to surrender their weapons.
Over 100 people were detained.
The armed fighters with the group that led Assad’s ouster and now controls much of Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), conducted searches in alleyways and entered homes. They said they were working in coordination with the interim Interior Ministry.
The HTS fighters seized weapons and destroyed certificates linked to the Baath party, Assad’s former ruling faction.
Outside, men lined up against walls for identity checks.
The HTS fighters, some partially covering their faces, detained suspected Assad loyalists and loaded them onto trucks.
Some residents, including children, cheered for the fighters.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, citing a military official, said the HTS-led authorities had established centers in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, to allow former soldiers and militia members to surrender their weapons. This voluntary surrender and handover of weapons has occurred in other parts of the country since Assad fled in early December.
Since then, Syria’s new security forces save arrested officials who under Assad worked with his notorious web of intelligence and security branches.
“We received information from the residents that there are members of former regime militias here who refused to give up their weapons and were terrorising the residents,” said Abu Muhammad, an official with the General Security Department who did not give his full name in accordance with regulations.
“Following the instructions of the leadership and the military operations administration, we followed the members, arrested them and transferred hem to the relevant departments,” he said.
It was not immediately clear what would happen to those arrested next.
A resident of the Wadi Al-Dahab neighbourhood, Nael Al-Asaad, said the HTS fighters inspected his legally licensed hunting rifles “and returned the rifles with full respect”. – Ghaith Alsayed & Leo Correa
