Armed men loyal to the Syrian government carried out field executions and spoke of purifying the country, according to eyewitnesses and video, providing a gruesome picture of a crackdown against remnants of the former Assad regime that spiraled into communal killings.

An ambush on a Syrian security patrol by gunmen loyal to ousted leader Bashar Assad escalated into clashes that a war monitor estimates have killed more than 1,000 people over four days. The attack Thursday near the port city of Latakia reopened the wounds of the country’s 13-year civil war and sparked the worst violence Syria has seen since

In a gripping report by Rizik Alabi for The Media Line, Syria is once again consumed by violence as fighting between pro-Assad rebels and government security forces intensifies in the coastal province of Latakia.

Two days of fighting along the Mediterranean coast were among the bloodiest battles since rebels ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad.

It is the worst violence in Syria since rebels toppled Assad in December and installed an Islamist transitional government. A war monitoring group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 70 people have been killed. A curfew has been imposed in the cities of Latakia and Tartous, where the fighting has broken out.