About 8000 fighters loyal to Bashar al-Assad from coastal Tartus province have been killed in six years of war, a new death toll revealed by the governorate of main militant stronghold in Syria.
At least 7986 troops and allied militants killed, 975 missing, 5450 wounded, Martyrs department in Tartus city said this week as families of slain soldiers demand concrete steps to protect their sons' rights who lost their lives defending al-Assad.
The coffins shipments to the regime's powerful militant supplier have been a daily event that accompanied with a state of anger despite regime's striving to calm things down by rewards and honorary commemorations.
The city of Tartus has suffered decades of negligence and constant resentment in comparison to the next-door city of Latakia where services and tourism and fortune.
At least 470,000 people have been killed since the revolution erupted in March 2011, according to the Syrian Centre for Policy Research, a Beirut-based NGO