BRAWLS erupted along Syria’s coast yesterday as Alawites rallying to protest at the bombing of one of their mosques clashed with a counter-demonstration.

Eight people were killed and 18 wounded when bombs went off in the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in Homs on Friday.

The attack has been claimed by a group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, which said it set the bombs to kill Alawites, a religious minority to which former president Bashar al-Assad belonged. The group targets those it considers heretics or infidels and previously claimed a June suicide bombing at a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus that killed 25.

Thousands of Alawites rallied in the seaside cities of Latakia and Tartous in response to a call by Alawite sheikh Ghazal Ghazal, who lives in exile and heads up the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora.

In Latakia, counter-demonstrators hostile to the Alawite community rallied and hurled rocks, beginning the violence, while police fired into the air to try to disperse the two sides. Nobody had been reported killed when the Morning Star went to press.

Alawites were frequent targets of jihadist violence during Syria’s civil war, both as a religious minority and because of their perceived association with the Assad government.

In March, hundreds were slaughtered by militas aligned with the new regime of former al-Qaida fighter Ahmed al-Sharaa. He is not widely thought to have ordered the massacres, but the commitment of the jihadist army he led to power a year ago to the secular Syria he now promises is uncertain.