Syria's new authorities under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa have sought to disband armed groups
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has reported that 745 Alawite civilians were killed in Latakia and Tartus provinces.
Syrian authorities said the violence began when remnants loyal to Assad launched a deadly and well-planned attack on their forces on Thursday.
There were no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Sharaa was appointed Wednesday to lead Syria for an unspecified transitional period
No group has claimed the four activists' abduction and they have not been heard from since.
Ankara-backed rebels played a key role in supporting Sharaa's Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which headed a rebel alliance that seized Damascus on December 8, toppling longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
The seismic change in Syria is expected to yield deeper Turkish sway just as a change of US administration is raising questions over how long Washington will keep backing the country's Kurdish-led forces.
Assad fled Syria following a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), more than 13 years after his crackdown on democracy protests precipitated one of the deadliest wars of the century.
The surviving pilot of a Russian plane shot down by Turkey on the Syrian border says no warning was given, and the plane was inside Syrian airspace.
President Putin condemns the downing of a Russian warplane on the Turkish-Syrian border, saying it is a “stab in the back” by “accomplices of terrorists”.
French police are examining what appears to be a suicide bomb belt dumped on a Paris street, 10 days after the attacks that killed 130 people.
A US air strike has destroyed more than 238 fuel trucks controlled by Islamic State (IS) militants in north-east Syria, the US military has said.
David Cameron is holding talks in Paris with French President Francois Hollande on co-operation in the fight against so-called Islamic State.
Wars on abstract concepts (e.g. terror, freethinking) are dangerous because they can be aimed at virtually anyone and can be invoked to launch every missile and curtail every freedom.
Terror alert led restaurants and bars to shut early amid fears of a Paris-style attack in Central Brussels. The manhunt continues for the fugitive Salah Abdeslam, who is thought to be armed with a suicide belt.
EU ministers agrees to get tough on border security after the devastating Paris attacks, as prosecutors said a third body had been found following a police raid on the ringleader's hideout.
David Cameron promises a "comprehensive strategy" to win MPs' backing for bombing Islamic State militants in Syria as well as Iraq.
Five Syrians have become the first of 12,000 refugees to arrive in Australia under a one-off plan to resettle people fleeing the country's conflict.
