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On Saturday, the highway leading from the capital, Damascus, into Tartus was nearly empty as the authorities tried to seal off all traffic into the coastal region. Government security forces set up checkpoints along the main roads into and throughout Tartus city, the provincial capital, where most shops were closed and many residents were hunkering down in their homes.<\/p>\n
Shadi Ahmed Khodar, 47, sat by the highway leading from Tartus north to Latakia, watching as the occasional ambulance or government vehicle sped by. The streets of his neighborhood had emptied as violence raged in recent days, turning Tartus into a ghost town, he said. He is an Alawaite but like many in the city, he said he does not support the Assad loyalists who have taken up arms against Syria\u2019s new authorities.<\/p>\n
But he was also terrified that security forces with the new government would no longer distinguish between armed Assad loyalists and people like him \u2014 a crane operator who had worked for the Assad government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cMaybe they will just come here and say we are against them and kill us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The country, he feared, was barreling toward more conflict. The violence had yet to subside by late Saturday afternoon and, down the road from where he stood, government forces at a checkpoint were warning drivers that gunmen were ambushing cars driving up the coast toward Latakia.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just in the shallow water,\u201d Mr. Khodar said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t reached the depths yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the nearby countryside of Latakia Province, armed Assad loyalists were holding dozens of government security personnel hostage after seizing control a day earlier, residents said. In other areas, local residents had taken up arms and stationed themselves outside their homes to protect their families, after hearing reports about government forces killing civilians.<\/p>\n
In Baniyas, a town on the northern tip of Tartus Province, armed men who appeared to be with the government had stormed into the town\u2019s predominately Alawite neighborhoods late Thursday night, according to four residents.<\/p>\n
Ghaith Moustafa, a resident of Baniyas, said he had spent most of Friday and Saturday huddling with his wife, Hala Hamed, and their 2-month-old son behind their front door \u2014 the only place in their small apartment that was not near any windows.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Early Friday morning, he said he heard the patter of shooting grow louder as armed men reached his building. Then he heard men shouting, gunfire and screams coming from the apartment below his. He later learned that his downstairs neighbors had been killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so scared for my baby, for my wife,\u201d Mr. Moustafa, 30, said in a telephone interview. \u201cShe was so afraid. I didn\u2019t know how to not show her that I was also afraid for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the gunfire subsided around 2 p.m. on Saturday, Mr. Moustafa said he and his family fled their apartment and sought shelter at a friend\u2019s house in a nearby neighborhood that had been spared much of the violence. Driving away from home, he was horrified.<\/p>\n
Every two or three meters, a body lay on the ground, he said. Blood stains were smeared across the pavement. Storefronts windows were shattered and many shops appeared to have been looted, he said.<\/p>\n
The Syrian Observatory said on Saturday that at least 60 civilians, including five children, were killed in the violence in Baniyas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m shocked, I\u2019m just shocked,\u201d said Mr. Moustafa, a pharmacist. By Saturday evening, all he could think about was leaving. \u201cWe have to get out of here as soon as possible,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s not safe, not at all safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Moustafa was among hundreds of people who fled Baniyas on Saturday, according to residents. Many sought shelter with friends who were not Alawite in the hope that their neighborhoods would avoid the brunt of any more violence.<\/p>\n
Wala, the al-Haffa resident who said she saw men in uniforms shooting at people as the fled, was taking cover with friends and family in her apartment when security personnel knocked down the front door, about an hour after government forces had entered her town. A friend visiting from the northwestern region of Idlib, where the rebels who overthrew Mr. al-Assad came from, pleaded with them not to shoot.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018I am from Idlib. All my family is from Idlib. Please don\u2019t do anything to these people. They are peaceful family,\u2019\u201d Wala recounted in a phone interview.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n