Volkswacht Bodensee - Syria announces end of Homs security sweep: state media

"We announce the end of the combing campaign in the neighbourhoods of Homs city after achieving the campaign's objectives," the SANA news agency said, quoting the head of Homs's General Security agency without naming the official.

"A number of suspects were arrested, and we transferred those proven to have committed crimes to the judiciary and released a number of others," the statement said, adding some suspects were still under investigation.

The campaign targeted "weapons depots" and saw the arrest of "criminals who have harmed the Syrian people for 13 years and had not handed over their weapons in settlement centres", SANA reported.

The official rejected any type of "revenge outside the justice system" and promised to hold accountable anyone who commits such crimes, calling on residents to report "any violations" by fighters.

Since Islamist-led rebels overthrew Assad last month, the transitional government has been registering former conscripts and soldiers and asking them to relinquish their arms.

Authorities said previously that some pro-Assad militias and former government operatives had refused to hand over their weapons in Homs, Syria's third-largest city.

On Sunday, an AFP correspondent saw security forces in Homs searching everyone entering or leaving the targeted neighbourhoods, and deployments at the entrances of several Alawite-majority areas.

The correspondent reported hearing gunfire and clashes, and saw tanks and military convoys in those areas.

Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, told AFP that 150 people had been arrested in Homs city and at least 500 others detained in the Homs area.

"Some of the detainees were mistreated during the operation," Abdel Rahman said, adding that the sweeps focused on neighbourhoods of the minority Alawite community and their surroundings.

Last week, a former official in charge of surveillance cameras inside the notorious Saydnaya prison and a field commander accused of committing "crimes against the Syrian people" was arrested in the Homs sweeps, SANA reported an interior ministry source as saying.

Alawites fear a backlash against their community both as a religious minority and because of its long association with the Assad family.

Since seizing power, Syria's new leadership has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they will not be harmed.

O.Schlaepfer--VB