Three people have been killed by security forces during protests by members of Syria's Alawite minority in the coastal city of Latakia on Sunday, a UK-based war monitor said.

According to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the three deaths came as Syrian security forces tried dispersing the protests.

Syrian authorities said they "contained the situation" but did not confirming their forces had opened fire.

Security forces reportedly tried to separate two groups of protesters that clashed with each other, members of the Alawite minority and Sunni Muslim supporters of Syria's new Islamist authorities, also by shooting in the air.

According to an AP report, pro-government demonstrators threw rocks at the Alawites, with another group hitting a counterdemonstrator. It wasn't initially clear how many people were injured in the clashes between the two groups.

The western inland city of Homs, too, saw violent clashes, SOHR reported, with several people injured as a result.

Why did the protests erupt? 

The protests came after a deadly mosque bombing took place in the Alawite area of Homs, in which eight people were killed. This was the latest attack against the community, which has been targeted by violence since the fall of former leader Bashar Assad, who is himself part of the Alawite minority.

A Sunni extremist and jihadist group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack.

Syrian officials condemned the mosque attack and said those responsible will be held accountable, with no arrests being announced so far.

The protesters on Sunday responded to a call by Ghazal Ghazal, an Alawite sheikh that does not live in Syria and heads the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora.

Islamists often consider the Alawites, who follow a heterodox offshoot of Shiite Islam, to be apostates.

Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah