Syrian security forces on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a region where 14 policemen were killed a day earlier in an ambush blamed on loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad’s regime, state media reported.The new administration’s security forces said its aim was to “control security, stability, and civil peace, and to pursue the remnants of Assad’s militias in the woods and hills” of the province of Tartous, SANA news agency reported.The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three gunmen affiliated with the former regime were killed in the operation. n18oc_world n18oc_crux