Syria’s new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country’s fragile peace could break down.

The country’s industrial capital, a religious melting pot and a strategic crossroads, is trying to rise from the devastation with which the regime punished this opposition stronghold

Syria's new security forces checked IDs and searched cars in the central city of Homs on Thursday, a day after protests by members of the Alawite minority erupted in gunfire and stirred fears that the country's fragile peace could break down.

Sana, the state-run Syrian news agency, reported Saturday that “a number of remnants of the Assad militias” were arrested in the coastal Latakia region in western Syria.

Syria's new rebel-led authorities say supporters of ousted President Bashar al-Assad have killed 14 interior ministry troops in an "ambush" in the west of the country. They say 10 other troops were wounded in the fighting on Tuesday near the Mediterranean port of Tartous, a stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite Muslim sect.

Syria's new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.