These were illicitly transferred to the German merchant ship Victoria at Syria's Latakia port.
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But he is angrily interrupted by a young Sunni from Latakia, a port in the Alawite heartland.
One of Syria's latest flash points is Haffa, a mountaintop village overlooking the coastal western city of Latakia.
Along the coast near Latakia and in the hills above, fancy villas testify to the wealth of prominent Alawites.
The Alawite region is largely along the coast, with Latakia at its center.
The UNHCR said it had delivered blankets and tents in an eight-truck convoy from an airport near the coastal city of Latakia.
But the location of Qusayr, between Damascus and Syria's coastal Latakia province, also suggests the location may be important to future plans by Mr. Assad.
In a separate development, the first of two Russian planes with humanitarian aid landed in the Syrian port of Latakia, Russia's Interfax news agency reports.
The rebels already control the border crossings with Turkey in the north, so the government would be forced to use a more difficult route going from Latakia.
If the regime collapses, the Alawites could retreat to strongholds in the northwest of the country around Latakia and attempt to reconstitute a state there, he said.
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Iran's Palestinian proxy, the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood known as Hamas, carried out its latest war crime right after Iran's battleships entered Syria's Latakia port.
The term originally referred to bulky men from the ruling Assad family and related clans who operated with impunity as smugglers and extortionists in the coastal town of Latakia during the 1970s.
The opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported that 51 people were killed Tuesday in the nation, including 12 in Latakia province, where the opposition clashed with regime forces on the outskirts of Hiffa.
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U.S. intelligence agencies think the offensive may be part of an effort by Mr. Assad to clear an approach to Latakia, which could become a haven for Alawites, the Shiite-linked minority sect of the Assad regime.
The region is of strategic value to Assad's regime because it links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria's Alawites and also home to the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.
The border region near Homs on the Syria side is strategic because it links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Syria's Alawites and is also home to the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus.
Undisclosed sources have indicated that Russian engineers are expanding the Syrian ports of Tartus and Latakia to serve a more significant strategic purpose, "The possibility of basing aircraft carriers and missile cruisers there is foreseen, " the source told Russian newspaper, Izvestia.
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Officials from the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation plan to go on a mission led by the Syrian government to the provinces of Homs, Hama, Tartous, Latakia, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, Rif Damashq and Daraa to assess humanitarian needs.
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