A spate of attacks involving loyalists of former ruler President Bashar al-Assad has spurred concerns of a return to sectarian warfare in Syria, but there is still a path for the country’s new

Armed groups killed entire families, including women and children, during an outbreak of sectarian violence in Syria last week, the United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday.

The number of civilians killed in the recent wave of violence in Syria has risen to 1,383, according to a human rights watchdog. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented three new massacres.

Syria's fragile transition from decades of Assad family brutal rule has been greatly shaken with an outburst of sectarian retribution and killings, posing a serious challenge to the new leadership led by Ahmad Sharaa.

The attack Thursday near the port city of Latakia reopened the wounds of the country’s 13-year civil war and sparked the worst violence Syria has seen since December, when insurgents led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham,