ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - At least 14 members of Syrian security forces were killed after being subjected to an ambush set up by loyalists of the toppled Bashar al-Assad regime in the western city of Tartus on Wednesday.

Mohammed Abdulrahman, interior minister in the new Syrian administration, revealed that 14 members of the ministry’s forces were killed and 10 others were wounded “while carrying out their duty of maintaining security and safety” in Tartus.

Abulrahman stressed that they will continue to make “sacrifices” until stability is achieved for the Syrian people, vowing to “strike with an iron fist anyone who dares to tamper with Syria’s security and the lives of its people.”

The security patrol was reportedly on a mission to arrest Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, a wanted officer of the Assad regime in Tartus, according to the UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The war monitor described Hassan as “one of the Saydnaya butchers,” referring to the Assad regime’s notorious torture prison, alleging that he had issued unlawful death sentences for thousands of inmates.

The forces were ambushed by the former regime loyalists, leading the ruling Command of Military Operations (CMO) to send military reinforcements to the area, resulting in violent clashes in which at least three members of Assad loyalists were killed and dozens others were arrested, SOHR added.

The clashes coincided with large demonstrations in several cities, as thousands of Alawites - an ethnoreligious group closely associated with the Assad family - protested the assault by armed groups on a religious shrine in Aleppo.

A video circulated on social media in recent days, allegedly showing armed men setting fire to the shrine of “Abu Abdullah Hussein Al-Khasibi, the Sheikh of Alawites worldwide,” in Aleppo, and killing five of the shrine’s servants.

The footage led to large protests in the cities of Tartus, Latakia, Homs, and Qardaha. At least one protester was killed and five others wounded in Homs after security forces reportedly opened fire in an attempt to quell the protests, according to SOHR.

The new Syrian interior ministry said in a statement that the viral video was not new footage, but rather from late November when rebel groups seized the city. The ministry claimed that the assault was carried out by an unknown group, stressing that their forces are constantly working to protect the religious sites.

Sheikh Ammar Mohammed and Sheikh Ahmed Bilal, custodians of the Alawite shrine, also confirmed that the footage was old.