logo
Syria's Druze find bodies in streets while searching for loved ones after days of clashes

Syria's Druze find bodies in streets while searching for loved ones after days of clashes

Japan Today6 days ago
Druze woman, Evelyn Azzam, 20, shows a picture of her husband who was wounded in clashes between Syrian government forces and Druze militias in Sweida, during an interview with The Associated Press in the southern Damascus suburb of Jaramana, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdulrahman Shaheen)
By ABDELRAHMAN SHAHEEN and KAREEM CHEHAYEB
A Syrian Druze woman living in the United Arab Emirates frantically tried to keep in touch with her family in her hometown in southern Syria as clashes raged there over the past days.
Her mother, father and sister sent videos of their neighbors fleeing as fighters moved in. The explosions from shelling were non-stop, hitting near their house. Her family took shelter in the basement. When she reached them later in a video call, they said her father was missing. He had gone out during a lull to check the situation and never returned.
'Now I only pray. That's all I can do," she told The Associated Press at the time.
Hours later, they learned he had been shot and killed by a sniper. The woman spoke on condition of anonymity fearing that using her name would put her surviving family and friends at risk.
A ceasefire went into effect late Wednesday, easing days of brutal clashes in Sweida. Now, members of its Druze community who fled or went into hiding are returning to search for loved ones and count their losses. They are finding homes looted and bloodied bodies of civilians in the streets.
The fighting began with tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze militias in the majority-Druze Sweida province. Government forces that intervened to restore order clashed with the Druze militias, but also in some cases attacked civilians.
At least 600 people — combatants and civilians on both sides — were killed in four days of clashes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. It said the dead included more than 80 civilians, mostly Druze, who were rounded up by fighters and collectively shot to death in what the monitor called 'field executions.'
'These are not individual acts but systemic,' the Observatory's director Rami Abdul-Rahman told the AP. 'All the violations are there. You can see from the bodies that are all over the streets in Sweida clearly show they're shot in the head.'
In response, Druze militias have targeted Bedouin families in revenge attacks since the ceasefire was reached. Footage shared on Syrian state media shows Bedouin families putting their belongings in trucks and fleeing with reports of renewed skirmishes in those areas. There was no word on casualties in those attacks.
Most of the Syrian Druze who spoke to the AP requested anonymity, fearing they and their families could be targeted.
The Druze religious sect is an offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. The others live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.
They largely celebrated the downfall in December of Syrian autocrat Bashar Assad but were divided over interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa's Sunni Islamist rule. The latest violence has left the community more skeptical of Syria's new leadership and doubtful of peaceful coexistence.
One Syrian-American Druze told the AP of his fear as he watched the clashes from the United States and tried to account for his family and friends whom he had seen in a recent trip to his native city Sweida.
Despite internet and communications breakdowns, he tracked down his family. His mother and brother fled because their home was shelled and raided, he said. Their belongings were stole, windows shattered. Their neighbors' house was burned down. Two other neighbors were killed, one by shelling, another by stray bullets, he said.
He also pored over online videos of the fighting, finding a harrowing footage.
It showed gunmen in military uniform forcing a number of men in civilian clothes to kneel in the street in a well-known roundabout in Sweida. The gunmen then spray the men with automatic fire, their bodies dropping to the ground. The footage was seen by the AP.
To his horror, he recognized the men. One was a close family friend — another Syrian American on a visit to Sweida from the U.S. The others were the friend's brother, father, three uncles and a cousin. Friends he reached told him that government forces had raided the house where they were all staying and took them outside and shot them.
'We affirm that protecting your rights and freedoms is among our top priorities,' al-Sharaa said in a speech broadcast Thursday, where he addressed the Druze people in Syria, promising to hold perpetrators of civilian killings to account.
But some rights groups accused Syria's interim government of systematic sectarian violence, similar to that inflicted on the Alawite religious minority in the coastal province of Latakia in the aftermath of Assad's fall as the new government tried to quell a counterinsurgency there.
Footage widely circulated on social media showed some of the carnage. One video shows a living room with several bodies on the floor and bullet holes in the walls and sofa.
In another, there are at least nine bloodied bodies in one room of the home of a family that took in people fleeing the fighting. Portraits of Druze notables are visible, smashed on the floor.
Evelyn Azzam, a Druze woman, is searching the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, trying to find out what happened to her husband, Robert Kiwan.
Last week, the 23-year-old Kiwan left home in Jaramana early as he does every day to commute to his job in Sweida.
He got caught up in the chaos when the clashes erupted. Azzam was on the phone with him as government forces questioned him and his coworkers. She heard a gunshot when one of the coworkers raised his voice. She heard her husband trying to appeal to the soldiers.
'He was telling them that they are from the Druze of Sweida, but have nothing to do with the armed groups,' the 20-year-old Azzam said.
Then she heard another gunshot; her husband was shot in the hip. An ambulance took him to a hospital, where she later learned he underwent an operation. But she hasn't heard anything since and doesn't know if he survived.
Back in the U.S., the Syrian-American said he was relieved that his family is safe but the video of his friend's family being gunned down in the street filled him with 'disbelief, betrayal, rage.'
He said his family and friends protested against Assad, celebrated his downfall and wanted to give al-Sharaa's rule a chance. He said he hadn't wanted to believe that the new Syrian army — which emerged from al-Sharaa's insurgent forces — was made up of Islamic militants.
But after the violence in Latakia and now in Sweida, he sees the new army as a 'bunch of militias … with a huge majority being radicals.'
'I can't imagine a world where I would be able to go back and integrate with these monsters,' he said.
© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump will reveal ‘AI Action Plan' shaped by his Silicon Valley supporters
Trump will reveal ‘AI Action Plan' shaped by his Silicon Valley supporters

Japan Today

time3 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Trump will reveal ‘AI Action Plan' shaped by his Silicon Valley supporters

President Donald Trump speaks during a reception for Republican members of Congress in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) By The Associated Press An artificial intelligence agenda formed on the podcasts of Silicon Valley billionaires is now being set into U.S. policy as President Donald Trump leans on the ideas of the tech figures who backed his election campaign. Trump plans on Wednesday to reveal an 'AI Action Plan' he ordered after revoking President Joe Biden's signature AI guardrails. The plan and related executive orders are expected to include some familiar tech lobby pitches: accelerating the sale of AI technology abroad and making it easier to construct the energy-hungry data center buildings that are needed to form and run AI products, according to a person briefed on Wednesday's event who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. It might also include some of the AI culture war preoccupations of the circle of venture capitalists who endorsed Trump last year. Here's the latest: The tech industry has pushed for easier permitting to get huge data centers connected to power and water — even if it means consumers losing drinking water and paying higher energy bills. On Tuesday, 95 groups including labor unions, parent groups, environmental justice organizations and privacy advocates signed a resolution opposing Trump's embrace of industry-driven AI policy and calling for a 'People's AI Action Plan' that would 'deliver first and foremost for the American people.' Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, which helped lead the effort, said the coalition expects Trump's plan to come 'straight from Big Tech's mouth.' 'Every time we say, 'What about our jobs, our air, water, our children?' they're going to say, 'But what about China?'' she said Tuesday. She said Americans should reject the White House's argument that artificial intelligence is overregulated, and fight to preserve 'baseline protections for the public.' Sacks, a former PayPal executive and now Trump's top AI adviser, has been criticizing 'woke AI' for more than a year, fueled by Google's February 2024 rollout of an AI image generator that, when asked to show an American Founding Father, created pictures of Black, Asian and Native American men. Google quickly fixed its tool, but the 'Black George Washington' moment remained a parable for the problem of AI's perceived political bias, taken up by X owner Elon Musk, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, Vice President JD Vance and Republican lawmakers. 'The AI's incapable of giving you accurate answers because it's been so programmed with diversity and inclusion,' Sacks said at the time. Elon Musk's xAI, pitched as an alternative to 'woke AI' companies, had to scramble this month to remove posts made by its Grok chatbot that made antisemitic comments and praised Adolf Hitler. The All-In Podcast is a business and technology show hosted by four tech investors and entrepreneurs including Trump's AI czar, David Sacks. The plan and related executive orders to be announced late Wednesday afternoon are expected to include some familiar tech lobby pitches — including accelerating the sale of AI technology abroad and making it easier to construct the energy-hungry data center buildings needed to run AI products, according to a person briefed on Wednesday's event who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. It might also include some of the AI culture war preoccupations of the circle of venture capitalists who endorsed Trump last year. ▶ Read more on Trump's Artificial Intelligence plan Global shares rallied on Wednesday, with Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index gaining 3.5% after Japan and the U.S. announced a deal on Trump's tariffs. The tariff agreement as announced calls for a 15% U.S. import duty on goods from Japan, apart from certain products such as steel and aluminum that are subject to much higher tariffs. That's down from the 25% Trump had said would kick in on Aug. 1 if a deal was not reached. 'This Deal will create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs — There has never been anything like it,' Trump posted on Truth Social, noting that Japan was also investing 'at my direction' $550 billion into the U.S. He said Japan would 'open' its economy to American autos and rice. Trump announced the U.S. will place a 19% tax on goods from Indonesia and the Philippines. A senior Trump official said Indonesia will charge no tariffs on 99% of its trade with the United States and drop its nontariff barriers on U.S. goods. Trump said the U.S. won't pay any tariffs in the Philippines, but they will pay 19%. 'President Trump has signed two trade deals this week with the Philippines and Japan which is likely to keep market sentiment propped up despite deals with the likes of the EU and South Korea remaining elusive, for now at least,' Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at Kohle Capital Markets, said in a report. House Speaker Mike Johnson rebuffed pressure to act on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, instead sending members home early on Wednesday for a month-long break from Washington after the week's legislative agenda was upended by Republican members who are clamoring for a vote. 'There's no purpose for the Congress to push an administration to do something they're already doing,' Johnson said at his last weekly news conference. The speaker's stance did little to alleviate the intra-party turmoil unfolding on Capitol Hill as many of Trump's supporters demand that the administration meet its promises to publicly release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, who killed himself in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. Under pressure from right-wing online influencers, as well as voters back home, rank-and-file Republicans are demanding House intervention. 'The public's not going to let this die, and rightfully so,' said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican. The president told congressional Republicans at a Tuesday night dinner that European Union officials will be in town Wednesday for the talks. 'We have Europe coming in tomorrow, the next day,' Trump said after announcing a trade framework with Japan. The president sent a letter this month threatening the 27 EU member states with 30% tariffs to be imposed starting Aug. 1. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

US automakers say Trump's 15% tariff deal with Japan puts them at a disadvantage
US automakers say Trump's 15% tariff deal with Japan puts them at a disadvantage

Japan Today

time3 hours ago

  • Japan Today

US automakers say Trump's 15% tariff deal with Japan puts them at a disadvantage

President Donald Trump greets people during a reception for Republican members of Congress in the East Room of the White House, Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson) By JOSH BOAK and ALEXA ST. JOHN U.S. automakers worry that President Donald Trump's agreement to tariff Japanese vehicles at 15% would put them at a competitive disadvantage, saying they will face steeper import taxes on steel, aluminum and parts than their competitors. 'We need to review all the details of the agreement, but this is a deal that will charge lower tariffs on Japanese autos with no U.S. content,' said Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents the Big 3 American automakers, General Motors, Ford and Jeep-maker Stellantis. Blunt said in an interview the U.S. companies and workers 'definitely are at a disadvantage' because they face a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum and a 25% tariff on parts and finished vehicles, with some exceptions for products covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that went into effect in 2020. The domestic automaker reaction reveals the challenge of enforcing policies across the world economy, showing that for all of Trump's promises there can be genuine tradeoffs from policy choices that risk serious blowback in politically important states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, where automaking is both a source of income and of identity. Trump portrayed the trade framework as a major win after announcing it on Tuesday, saying it would add hundreds of thousands of jobs to the U.S. economy and open the Japanese economy in ways that could close a persistent trade imbalance. The agreement includes a 15% tariff that replaces the 25% import tax the Republican president had threatened to charge starting on Aug. 1. Japan would also put together $550 billion to invest in U.S. projects at the 'direction' of the president, the White House said. The framework with Japan will remove regulations that prevent American vehicles from being sold in that country, the White House has said, adding that it would be possible for vehicles built in Detroit to be shipped directly to Japan and ready to be sold. But Blunt said that foreign auto producers, including the U.S., Europe and South Korea, have just a 6% share in Japan, raising skepticism that simply having the open market that the Trump administration says will exist in that country will be sufficient. 'Tough nut to crack, and I'd be very surprised if we see any meaningful market penetration in Japan,' Blunt said. Asked at Wednesday's briefing about whether Trump's sectoral tariffs such as those on autos were now subject to possible change, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the issue had been going through the Commerce Department. The framework with Japan was also an indication that some nations simply saw it as preferential to have a set tariff rate rather than be whipsawed by Trump's changes on import taxes since April. But for the moment, both Japan and the United Kingdom with its quotas on auto exports might enjoy a competitive edge in the U.S. 'With this agreement in place it provides Japan with a near-term operating cost advantage compared to other foreign automakers, and even some domestic U.S. product that uses a high degree of both foreign production and parts content,' said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars. "It will be interesting to see if this is the first domino to fall in a series of foreign countries that decide long-term stability is more important that short term disputes over specific tariff rates.' Autos Drive America, an organization that represents major Japanese companies Toyota, Honda and Nissan and other international automakers, said in a statement that it is 'encouraged' by the announced trade framework and noted its members have exceeded domestic automaker production for the past two years. The statement urged "the Trump administration to swiftly reach similar agreements with other allies and partners, especially the European Union, South Korea, Canada and Mexico.' The Japanese framework could give automakers and other countries grounds for pushing for changes in the Trump administration's tariffs regime. The president has previously said that he values flexibility in negotiating import taxes. The USMCA is up for review next year. Ford, GM and Stellantis do 'have every right to be upset,' said Sam Fiorani, vice president at consultancy AutoForecast Solutions. But 'Honda, Toyota, and Nissan still import vehicles from Mexico and Canada, where the current levels of tariffs can be higher than those applied to Japanese imports. Most of the high-volume models from Japanese brands are already produced in North America.' Fiorani noted that among the few exceptions are the Toyota 4Runner, the Mazda CX-5 and the Subaru Forester, but most of the other imports fill niches that are too small to warrant production in the U.S. 'There will be negotiations between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico, and it will probably result in tariffs no higher than 15%,' Fiorani added, 'but nobody seems to be in a hurry to negotiate around the last Trump administration's free trade agreement.' St. John contributed from Detroit. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Doctor who supplied Matthew Perry ketamine and called him a ‘moron' is set to enter guilty plea
Doctor who supplied Matthew Perry ketamine and called him a ‘moron' is set to enter guilty plea

Japan Today

time18 hours ago

  • Japan Today

Doctor who supplied Matthew Perry ketamine and called him a ‘moron' is set to enter guilty plea

FILE - Matthew Perry appears at the GQ Men of the Year Party in West Hollywood, Calif., on Nov. 17, 2022. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File) By ANDREW DALTON A doctor charged with giving Matthew Perry ketamine in the weeks leading up to the 'Friends' star's overdose death is expected to plead guilty Wednesday. Dr. Salvador Plasencia would be the fourth of five people charged in connection with Perry's death to plead guilty. Plasencia was to have gone on trial in August until the doctor agreed last month to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, according to the signed document filed in federal court in Los Angeles. He had previously pleaded not guilty, but in exchange for the guilty pleas prosecutors have agreed to drop three additional counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of falsifying records. Plasencia's attorneys emphasized in an email after he reached his agreement that he 'was not treating Matthew Perry at the time of his death and the ketamine that caused Mr. Perry's death was not provided by Dr. Plasencia.' The remaining charges can carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and there is no guarantee he'll get less, but he's likely to. Plasencia has been free on bond since shortly after his arrest in August. He will not be sentenced until a future hearing. The only remaining defendant who has not reached an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office is Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors allege is a drug dealer known as the 'Ketamine Queen' and sold Perry the lethal dose. Her trial is scheduled to begin next month. She has pleaded not guilty. According to prosecutors and co-defendants who reached their own deals, Plasencia illegally supplied Perry with a large amount of ketamine starting about a month before his death on Oct. 28, 2023. According to a co-defendant, Plasencia in a text message called the actor a 'moron' who could be exploited for money. Perry's personal assistant, his friend, and another doctor all agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation as the government sought to make their case against larger targets, Plasencia and Sangha. None have been sentenced yet. Perry was found dead by the assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death. The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor in a legal but off-label treatment for depression, which has become increasingly common. Perry, 54, began seeking more ketamine than his doctor would give him. Plasencia admitted in his plea agreement that another patient connected him with Perry, and that starting about a month before Perry's death, he illegally supplied the actor with 20 vials of ketamine totaling 100 mg of the drug, along with ketamine lozenges and syringes. He admitted to enlisting another doctor, Mark Chavez, to supply the drug for him, according to the court filings. 'I wonder how much this moron will pay,' Plasencia texted Chavez, according to Chavez's plea agreement. After selling the drugs to Perry for $4,500, Plasencia allegedly asked Chavez if he could keep supplying them so they could become Perry's 'go-to,' prosecutors said. Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on 'Friends,' when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing. He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC's megahit. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store