On March 6, remnants of Syria’s former regime launched a series of coordinated attacks in cities and villages along the country’s coastline, targeting patrols and headquarters of the transitional government’s General Security agency in the first operation of its kind since the fall of president Bashar al-Assad on December 8.

The attacks began with several ambushes along the Latakia-Jableh-Banias highway, cutting the road. The regime loyalists then attacked and seized control of key sites including a naval command center and college near Jableh, Criminal Security agency facilities in Latakia and Jableh, the Regional Command HQ in Qardaha and the National Hospital in Jableh.

They also cut roads to Draykish, Qastal, Beit Yashout, the Satamo Military Airport, the Hmeimim Base bridge, and the Tartous Port checkpoints. The initial attack left 16 members of the General Security force dead, while a further 47 were kidnapped after being surrounded and arrested.

The attack coincided with an announcement of the formation of a military council, signed by Brigadier General Ghiath Dala, a prominent figure in the former regime’s Fourth Division and a confidant of Assad’s brother Maher. The statement urged locals to take up arms against Syria’s new rulers.

This large-scale, organized attack by regime remnants on the coast came a day after the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the formation of a group known as the Islamic Resistance in Syria, or “Awali al-Ba’s” (“the Greatest Warriors”), as well as the “313 th Force for Jihad in Syria”.

The Assad loyalists’ attack also coincided with unrest in the southwestern province of Suwayda and in Jarmana, as well as the deployment of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reinforcements to fronts around the Tishreen Dam and Maskana. Kurdish Protection Units (YPG) forces in Aleppo city also briefly took control of the Al-Layramoun roundabout overnight, before retreating at dawn.

In response to developments on the coast, new Ministry of the Interior called for a general mobilization, and the Ministry of Defense, in coordination with military divisions deployed in the south, center and north of the country, sent large reinforcements towards the coast where they launched a major counter-attack against the Assad loyalists.

This prompted Dala to issue a statement calling for negotiations and calm. The recently-formed Supreme Council of the Alawite sect issued a statement justifying the loyalists’ attacks as a reaction to the new government’s security forces’ treatment of members of the sect, and appealed to the former regime’s key backer Russia to take immediate action to protect the sect.

Government security and military forces quickly resolved the situation and halted the Assad loyalists’ organized attack, seizing back security headquarters and major checkpoints in the cities of the Syrian coast within 12 hours. The authorities then carried out a widespread search operation in the mountains along the coast to track down and eliminate loyalist forces, taking advantage of general alert and the arrival of some 15,000 fighters to the region.

Did Loyalists have External Help?

These simultaneous, coordinated moves and pre-emptive announcements of the formation of new armed groups on the Syrian coast, as well as recent media criticism of the new government, all suggest the presence of a carefully planned operation backed by external actors, aiming to ignite a rebellion on the Syrian coast, expel government forces and enable Assad loyalists to regain control.

Iran, which supported the attack, appears to be seeking to change the map of control in Syria to make up for the strategic loss it incurred with the fall of the Assad regime. It may be hoping to claw back some influence in the region in order to use its militias in forthcoming negotiations with the U.S., similar to Tehran’s efforts in the 2015 nuclear deal to save Assad and Hezbollah.

The Iranian media and the statement of the Alawite sheikhs make clear that the Assad loyalists aimed to occupy the coastal cities and then rely on Russian forces at the nearby Hmeimim and Tartous bases to protect and defend them.

This plan also sought to take advantage of warming ties between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump to draw Russia into protecting the coastal region, as well as taking advantage of Israel’s hostility to the new Syrian authorities, and its support for separatists in northeastern Syria and Suwayda, where senior Assad loyalists want to exploit tensions to gain prominence and join moves towards partition.

However, the government’s rapid response and the failure of the attackers to take control of Tartous, Jableh and Latakia nipped that plan in the bud, helped by Syrian public hostility to the Assad loyalists and the chaos they sought to create.

In conclusion, the attack completely failed, even backfiring on its perpetrators, as many of those responsible were killed, although others will continue to threaten the authorities. That said, the attack also demonstrated the failure of the current system for reintegrating or settling the status ( taswiya ) of former regime officers. The Syrian government needs to draw up lists of the names of those officers, their locations, and their arms, then pursue them and demand that they hand over their weapons.

Despite the government’s control over all the institutions of the state, the attack on the coast underlines that many weapons remain in private hands in various areas of the country, and their owners remain at large, especially in Damascus and its surroundings, Hama, and Aleppo.