Alawites, a Shia sect, ruled Syria for decades under the Assads. Now, after Bashar al-Assad's fall, they face violence as sectarian tensions escalate in the war-torn country

The death toll from two days of clashes between security forces and loyalists of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 600, a war monitoring group said Saturday.

Syrian leader Ahmed Sharaa scrambled on Sunday (March 9) 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.