For three years, residents of Syria's Mediterranean provinces have watched from their coastal sanctuary as civil war raging further inland tore the country apart, killing tens of thousands of people and devastating historic cities. But a three-week-old offensive by rebel fighters in the **rth of Latakia province, a bastion of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite mi**rity, has brought the battle ever closer and shattered that sense of relative security. Rebels are **w fighting in the hills overlooking the sea, bringing the country's main port of Latakia within their range - rocket-fire killed eight people in one barrage on the city a month ago - and Syria's coast feels under real threat. "They can erase us, even those of us who support them," said a young Alawite woman as she drank coffee with her fiance in a Latakia cafe, 50 km (30 miles) south of where have rebels seized their first toehold on Syria's coast, by the Turkish border.
04-13-2014, 10:14 PM
In Assad's coastal heartland, Syria's war creeps closer
For three years, residents of Syria's Mediterranean provinces have watched from their coastal sanctuary as civil war raging further inland tore the country apart, killing tens of thousands of people and devastating historic cities. But a three-week-old offensive by rebel fighters in the **rth of Latakia province, a bastion of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite mi**rity, has brought the battle ever closer and shattered that sense of relative security. Rebels are **w fighting in the hills overlooking the sea, bringing the country's main port of Latakia within their range - rocket-fire killed eight people in one barrage on the city a month ago - and Syria's coast feels under real threat. "They can erase us, even those of us who support them," said a young Alawite woman as she drank coffee with her fiance in a Latakia cafe, 50 km (30 miles) south of where have rebels seized their first toehold on Syria's coast, by the Turkish border.
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