Druze youths studying at a Latakia university were severely beaten in a sectarian attack reportedly spurred by Druze opposition to the regime’s mandatory military service

“A number of Suweida youth were severely beaten by a group of attackers calling themselves the ‘Shabiha of the Coast’,” the pro-opposition Siraj Press reported Friday.

Several anti-regime media outlets covered the attack, which happened in Teshrin University’s Technical Institute for Veterinary Studies in the southern Latakia suburb of Sanawbar.

Latakia, 08-05-2015: Mourning is continuing among the ranks of Assad’s supporters in Latakia and anti-regime sentiments are mounting as the number of bodies of local regime troops being returned after being killed in fighting on various fronts across Syria continues to increase due to the victories by rebel forces who continue to make great progress across the country despite the massive odds against them.

06-05-2015: The Tehran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah has officially opened an office on March 8th Street in Latakia in one of the regime stronghold city’s most affluent neighbourhoods, already recruiting dozens of regime officers, troops and Alawite supporters of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

A source close to the regime’s ‘Desert Hawks Brigade,’ led by Ayman Jaber, a relative of Assad, confirmed in a statement to Souria.net that “Hezbollah is currently working on rehabilitating the military units in the Syrian leadership and in the Shiite community in particular.”