Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service.
We're coming to you live from London.
I'm James Menendez.
It has been the worst outbreak of violence and bloodletting in Syria
since the fall of the Assad regime at the end of last year.
The British based monitoring group,
the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 1,000 people have been killed
in the space of just a few days.
Many, perhaps most of them civilians,
living in areas traditionally loyal to to the ousted president.
Along Syria's Mediterranean coast,
the fighting began when the country's new Islamist led security forces were ambushed
by fighters loyal to Bashar Al Assad.
Further clashes ensued, together with revenge killings against the Alawite community,
the minority sect to which the Assad family belonged.
While Syria's new interim leader, Ahmad Al Shara,
has called for an end to the violence and called for national unity.
What'S currently happening in the country comes within the expected challenges we have to.
Preserve national unity and domestic peace.
And God willing, we can live together in this country.