2.5.3. Security trends

After the insurgency in March 2025 in the coastal region, the rate of events dropped rapidly.716 In August 2025 the coastal region recorded a spike in attacks by Assadist remnants.717 Throughout the rest of 2025, the governorate witnessed a low-intensity conflict, marked by sporadic violence involving non-state armed groups.718 Sources reported of several security operations conducted against cells affiliated with the former Assad regime, some of which were accused of planning attacks on state security infrastructure. Several cell members were arrested during the reporting period.719

On 28 December 2025, demonstrations called by Sheikh Ghazal Ghazal, the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the diaspora, took place in Tartous and further coastal locations, in reaction to the 26 December 2025 bombing of an Alawite mosque in Homs.720 Violent clashes between Alawite protesters and pro-government counterprotesters broke out.721 Anti-government attackers wounded two members of the security forces with a grenade in Baniyas. In response, the MoD deployed military units to Tartous.722

Several other anti-government insurgent incidents and security operations against anti-government insurgents were reported in the governorate in December 2025 and January 2026.723 Media and human rights sources documented several incidents of kidnapping, enforced disappearance, and gender-based violence targeting Alawite women in the coastal region, including Tartous.724 Between February and July 2025, Amnesty International received reports of at least 36 kidnappings of Alawite women and girls across Latakia, Tartous, Homs, and Hama governorates by unidentified individuals.725

In early May 2026, the MoI announced that a jointly conducted security operation with the General Intelligence Service in Tartous and four other governorates had dismantled a Hezbollah-affiliated cell.726