DAMASCUS, March 11 (Reuters) - A Syrian fact-finding

committee investigating sectarian killings during clashes

between the army and loyalists of Bashar al-Assad said on

Tuesday that no one was above the law and it would seek the

arrest and prosecution of any perpetrators.

Pressure has been growing on Syria's Islamist-led government

to investigate after reports by witnesses and a war monitor of

the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where the

majority of the population are members of the ousted president's

Alawite sect.

"No one is above the law, the committee will relay all the

results to the entity that launched it, the presidency, and the

judiciary," the committee's spokesperson Yasser Farhan said in a

televised press conference.

The committee was preparing lists of witnesses to interview

and potential perpetrators, and would refer any suspects with

sufficient evidence against them to the judiciary, Farhan added.

The U.N human rights office said entire families including

women and children were killed in the coastal region as part of

a series of sectarian killings by the army against an insurgency

by Assad loyalists.

Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa told Reuters in an

interview on Monday that he could not yet say whether forces

from Syria's defence ministry - which has incorporated former

rebel factions under one structure - were involved in the

sectarian killings.

Asked whether the committee would seek international help to

document violations, Farhan said it was "open" to cooperation

but would prefer using its own national mechanisms.

The violence began to spiral on Thursday, when the

authorities said their forces in the coastal region came under

attack from fighters aligned with the ousted Assad regime.

The Sunni Islamist-led government poured reinforcements into

the area to crush what it described as a deadly, well-planned

and premeditated assault by remnants of the Assad government.

But Sharaa acknowledged to Reuters that some armed groups

had entered without prior coordination with the defence

ministry.

The Alawites are the second-largest religious group in Syria

after Sunni Muslims. Their faith is an offshoot Shi'ite Islam.