A WAVE of violence continued to spread across Syria on Sunday as areas loyal to the former president were left with dead bodies piling up on the streets.

Hundreds have reportedly fled their homes in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus with locals reporting the mass killings of men, women and children as well as widespread looting.

There are reports of bodies piled up around the streets of the  predominantly Alawite neighbourhood of Hai al-Kusour in the coastal city of Banias. 

The Alawites, to which former president Bashar al-Assad belongs,  are an offshoot of Shia Islam and make up around 10 per cent of the population. The majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has documented more than 740 civilians killed in the cities of Latakia, Jableh and Banias.

It also says that another 300 members of the security forces and others loyal to the former president have also been killed.

The violence began last Thursday after Ghiath Dallah, an ex-brigadier in the Assad army, said he was mounting a rebellion against the new regime and forming a “Military Council for the Liberation of Syria.”

But many are blaming interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa for the upsurge in violence by dismantling Syria’s security, army and police structures without any strategy for what would follow.

The new jihadist regime toppled former president Assad three months ago and are still struggling to deal with the impact of sanctions against the country.

They also still have Israel continuing to occupy a buffer zone in south-west Syria, adjacent to the Golan Heights, after the Israelis took advantage of the chaos around the ousting of the former regime.