Thousands of people have protested in several cities across Syria after a video circulates showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the north, a war monitor and witnesses say. Syria’s new rulers said the video was “old” and “unknown groups” were behind the attack,

Syria’s new Islamist-led authorities said the footage was “old” and that “unknown groups” were behind the attack, saying “republishing” the video served to “stir up strife”, a day after hundreds protested in Damascus against the torching of a Christmas tree.

The footage of the shrine in Aleppo is “old and dates to the time of the liberation” of the northern Syrian city earlier this month, an interior ministry statement said.