THE DEATH toll from days of violence between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar al-Assad has risen to more than 1,000, a war monitoring group said on Saturday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in addition to 745 civilians killed, mostly in shootings from close distance, 125 government security force members and 148 militants with armed groups affiliated with Mr Assad were killed.

It added that electricity and drinking water were cut off in large areas around the city of Latakia.

The clashes, which erupted on Thursday, marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after insurgents took authority after removing Mr Assad from power.

The government has said that it was responding to attacks from remnants of Mr Assad’s forces and blamed “individual actions” for the rampant violence.

The revenge killings that started on Friday by Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government against members of Mr Assad’s minority Alawite sect are a major blow to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the faction that led the overthrow of the former government.

The Alawite community made up a large part of Mr Assad’s support base for decades.

Residents of Alawite villages and towns spoke to reporters about killings during which gunmen shot Alawites, the majority of them men, in the streets or at the gates of their homes.

Many homes of Alawites were looted and then set on fire in different areas, two residents of Syria’s coastal region told reporters from their hideouts.

They asked that they remain anonymous out of fear of being killed by gunmen, adding that thousands of people have fled to nearby mountains for safety.

Residents of Baniyas, one of the towns worst hit by the violence, said bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them.

One resident said that the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbours killed on Friday at close range.

Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of Baniyas who fled with his family and neighbours hours after the violence broke out on Friday, said that at least 20 of his neighbours and colleagues in one neighbourhood of Baniyas where Alawites lived, were killed, some of them in their shops, or in their homes.

Mr Sheha called the attacks “revenge killings” of the Alawite minority for the crimes committed by Mr Assad’s government. Other residents said the gunmen included foreign fighters, and militants from neighbouring villages and towns.

“It was very very bad. Bodies were on the streets,” as he was fleeing, Mr Sheha said, speaking by phone from nearly 12 miles away from the city.

He said the gunmen were gathering near his home, firing randomly at buildings and residents and in at least one incident he knows of, asked residents for their IDs to check their religion and their sect before killing them. He said the gunmen also burned some homes and stole cars and robbed homes.