A security sweep was underway in the city on Thursday, with a so-called rights monitor saying the targets included "protest organizers" from the Alawite minority.
Authorities called "on the residents of the neighborhoods of Wadi al-Dhahab, Akrama not to go out to the streets, remain home, and fully cooperate with our forces”.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said the two districts of Wadi al-Dhahab and Akrama in Homs are a majority-Alawite community.
The campaign, he said, aimed to search for those who organized or participated in the Alawite demonstrations last week, which the HTS considered as incitement against its authority.
Last Wednesday, thousands of people protested in several areas across Syria, including Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Hama, and Qardaha, after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country’s north.
In another development last week, the HTS terrorist group raided the western province of Tartus, the Alawite heartland.
Earlier, hundreds of demonstrators protested in the Christian areas of Damascus against the burning of a Christmas tree by the terrorist group near Syria’s Hama.
SD/PressTV
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