A Syrian security source said the pace of fighting had slowed around Latakia, Jabla and Baniyas, while forces searched surrounding mountainous areas where an estimated 5,000 pro-Assad insurgents were hiding.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said on March 8 that more than 1,000 people had been killed in two days of fighting. It said 745 were civilians, 125 members of the Syrian security forces and 148 fighters loyal to Assad.

Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa scrambled on Sunday to contain some of the deadliest violence in 13 years of civil war, pitting loyalists of deposed president Bashar al-Assad against the country's new Islamist rulers.