The Economist’s Syria correspondent Gareth Browne was in Latakia when violence erupted, seemingly set off by Assad regime loyalists. He tells Becky Anderson about the apparently out-of-control response to what Syria’s government is characterizing as an attempted insurrection.

Hundreds of people were killed in Syria over four days after violent clashes between the army and loyalists of the deposed president Bashar al-Assad swept its western coastal region.