Syria's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa on Friday urged insurgents from ousted president Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority to lay down their arms and surrender after the fiercest attacks on the war-torn country's new rulers yet.

Syria's leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has urged insurgents from ousted president Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority to lay down their arms and surrender after the fiercest attacks on the war-torn country's new rulers yet.

The death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, a war monitoring group said Saturday,