TEHRAN, MAR 10 (AFP/APP/DNA):Iran’s foreign ministry said Monday there was “no justification” for attacks on minorities in Syria, including Alawites, the community to which toppled president Bashar al-Assad, a long-time Tehran ally, belongs.

“There is no justification for the attacks on parts of the Alawite, Christian, Druze and other minorities, which have truly wounded the emotions and conscience of both the countries of the region and internationally,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei during a weekly press briefing.

Fighting between the new security forces and loyalists of the former Assad’s government erupted last Thursday, after earlier tensions, and escalated into reported mass killings.

A total of 973 civilians have been killed in the coastal heartland of the Alawite minority community in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor on Monday.

The fighting has also killed hundreds of security forces as well as pro-Assad fighters, according to the Observatory, with the overall death toll exceeding 1,300.

Assad fled Syria in December for Moscow as rebel forces entered Damascus in a lightning offensive led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s current interim president.