A war monitoring group said more than 1,000 were killed in revenge attacks and clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad.

A war monitoring group said on Saturday that the violence was one of the deadliest incidents since Syria's conflict began 14 years ago.

The death toll from recent clashes in Syria has surpassed 1,000, with significant casualties among civilians, security forces, and militants. The violence marks a severe escalation in the ongoing conflict,

At least 745 Alawite civilians were killed in Latakia and Tartous over three days, SOHR reported, in addition to 148 pro-Assad fighters. Around 125 members of the new Syrian government’s forces were also killed, the UK-based war monitor said.

The death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, a war monitoring group said Saturday,

The clashes, which erupted on Thursday, marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus.

The death toll from two days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, including nearly 750 civilians,

The Economist’s Syria correspondent Gareth Browne was in Latakia when violence erupted, seemingly set off by Assad regime loyalists. He tells Becky Anderson about the apparently out-of-control response to what Syria’s government is characterizing as an attempted insurrection.