Photos and video clips showed, on Wednesday, the burning of the tomb of former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in his hometown of Qardaha in Latakia Governorate.

At the same time as the burning, armed opposition members and young men were wandering inside the shrine, where he was buried after his death in 2000.

Photos showed flames rising from a model grave before it was destroyed.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, gunmen from opposition factions burned the shrine days after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, who succeeded his father in power.

According to what the Observatory added, gunmen, posing as security forces, attacked citizens and their property in the hometown of the former regime president.

On Monday, a delegation from the Syrian opposition forces that overthrew the rule of Bashar al-Assad met with tribal sheikhs in the Qardaha area, and received their support, while residents said that the move was an encouraging sign of tolerance on the part of the country’s new rulers.

Residents said that the opposition forces delegation visited the Qardaha area, located in the mountains of Latakia Governorate in northwestern Syria, where it met with dozens of clerics, sheikhs and others in the Qardaha city council building, before Alawite notables signed a statement of support.

Residents said the delegation included members of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the Free Syrian Army, two Sunni groups that led opposition forces and which Assad has always said were terrorist organizations that would commit massacres against Alawites if he fell.

The way Sunni-led opposition forces deal with members of the Alawite sect, who have widely supported Assad and from whom he drew his presidential bodyguards, is seen in Syria as a litmus test of whether taking control of Damascus on Sunday will lead to violent retaliation against former regime loyalists. A misfortune that lasted for five decades.

Syrians from the Alawite sect, one of the Shiite sects, constitute about ten percent of the country’s population and are concentrated in Latakia Governorate, near the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Türkiye.

Sunni Muslims make up about 70 percent of the population, and there are large minorities of Christians, Kurds, Druze, and other groups.

The statement, which was reviewed by Reuters, stressed the religious and cultural diversity in Syria. He also called for the return of police and government services to the city and countryside of Qardaha as soon as possible under the administration of the new rulers, and agreed to hand over any weapons in the possession of Qardaha residents.