Protesters in Syria's Druze heartland demand govt forces withdraw
Sweida province has seen tough humanitarian conditions since week-long clashes killed around 1,400 people last month, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The United Nations says more than 175,000 displaced people have yet to return to their homes.
The violence initially pitted Druze fighters against local Sunni Bedouin tribes but rapidly escalated, drawing in Syrian government forces as well as Israel, which bombed them.
The Islamist-led interim government said its forces intervened to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the Observatory accused them of siding with the Bedouin and of committing abuses including summary executions.
Dozens of protesters, including women and children, gathered in a main square in Sweida, holding placards calling for the opening of a humanitarian corridor from Jordan, an AFP photographer said.
Similar protests were held in other Druze towns, according to the Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring group.
The government has deployed forces to several parts of Sweida province but not to the provincial capital.
Residents accuse them of imposing a blockade, a claim the government has denied, instead blaming "outlaw groups", in reference to Druze fighters.
Activist Rawan Abu Assaf said protesters' demands included "lifting the blockade imposed on Sweida province and the withdrawal of government forces from all its villages".
The Observatory said the main Damascus-Sweida highway was still cut and accused armed groups linked to the government of blocking the resumption of normal trade.
The monitor said the province was under de facto blockade despite the entry of several aid convoys.
Interior ministry spokesman Noureddine al-Baba said the convoys gave the lie to Druze claims of a blockade.
But the Observatory said the government was just keeping up appearances for the international community.
UN humanitarian coordinator Adam Abdelmoula said on Thursday that the United Nations and its partners had sent a new convoy to Sweida province, with 40 trucks carrying "a broad range of life-saving assistance" including food, water and medical supplies.
He called it "a significant step toward expanding access and scaling up the humanitarian response in affected areas of southern Syria".
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(AFP Image) BANGLADESH ARMY'S NOT TO SHOOT DECISION WAS GAMECHANGERWaker-Uz-Zaman was appointed Bangladesh Army Chief in June 2024, when the country was already a relative of Hasina, operated with fairness during the entire agitation, according to multiple then, protests had even started in Defence Officers Housing Society areas in Dhaka. This was unprecedented because military officers were pampered by Hasina and their children brought up in relative affluence."Hasina not only took care of the military with unprecedented largesse, but she also changed the Constitution to deter political intervention by the military, making it a crime of high treason," says lower-rung officers and sepoys, like some of the civilian officials, had by then gone into a civil-disobedience mode. That was a result of news of young relatives falling prey to bullets, sources told India Today August 4, with the Hasina government finding itself embattled with millions ready for the long March to Dhaka a day later, a shoot-at-sight curfew was in a meeting with the top Army commanders on August 4, decided that his force would not shoot at protesters. This, and the reports of military officers unwilling to act against protesters earlier, boosted the confidence of the of thousands started pouring into Dhaka at daybreak on August 5. That is when General Zaman visited Hasina and asked her to board the military helicopter and save her life."Ultimately the military had to force her collapse, mostly because the sheer number of people on Dhaka's streets with bricks and sticks were simply multiple folds of the count of ammunition the security establishment had at their disposal," says only did the army take a hands-off approach, some lower-ranking military personnel were also looking at options to bring down the regime if Hasina lasted beyond August 5."A military official told me he considered resigning and arming civilians for urban guerrilla warfare if Hasina had not fled on August 5," says activist-writer Salam, adding, "This tells you this was a civil war situation." Students chanted anti-Hasina slogans near Dhaka University after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to flee. (AFP Image) HASINA'S BANGLADESH EXIT NOT JUST DUE TO STUDENTS AGITATIONThough students were the ones who started the fire, but it became an inferno because political parties and Islamist organisations added their muscle to the in morgue and those injured reveal the extent to which political and religious outfits participated in the street cheers that greeted the army and personnel flashing the victory sign also reveal that the military ensured a transfer of power in what can be interpreted as a coup-de-lite, albeit in the face of a massive people's movement."Hasina's regime collapsed because, towards the end, it became fashionable for all segments of Bangladeshi society to resist her, which includes laypersons, the political class, the military and even her cronies, who, towards the end, played their cards in such a way that the regime collapsed," sums up Rabbee.- EndsMust Watch
