A bloody week in Syria may have ripple effects in Lebanon
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Reuters
7 hours ago
- Reuters
Left with bloodstains and bullet holes, Syria's Druze grieve loved ones
SWEIDA, Syria July 27 (Reuters) - Hatem Radwan stared at the bloodstained floor and cushions in the Al-Radwan guest house in Syria's Druze city of Sweida, still wondering how he survived the shooting spree more than a week ago that killed his relatives and friends. "I'm not sleeping. I wish I would have died; it would have been better for me," the 70-year-old told Reuters, saying two of his sons-in-law and his daughter's father-in-law were killed when armed men stormed into the guesthouse on July 16. Hundreds of people were killed in days of sectarian violence in Syria's Sweida province, where government forces were sent to quell clashes between Druze factions and Bedouin tribes. Syria's defence ministry on July 22 said it would investigate reports of an "unknown group" in military fatigues committing "shocking and gross violations" in Sweida, and hold the perpetrators accountable. The interior ministry condemned "the circulating videos showing field executions carried out by unidentified individuals in the city of Sweida," and also pledged to conduct a probe. Residents, monitoring groups and reporters in the province said the violence intensified after security forces deployed, reporting several cases of execution-style killings. One of the most gruesome was the Al-Radwan guesthouse. Radwan said armed men entered the guesthouse on July 15 as he was gathered there with Druze friends and relatives. The fighters smashed up the room, took the keys of a car that was parked outside and turned to leave. Radwan said he then heard one fighter say, "let's kill them so they don't recognise us." He collapsed onto the floor as the shooting started. "I don't know whether it was a bullet or what that hit me, but I fell down. I thought, 'it's over, I'm going to die,'" he told Reuters. A video posted online and verified by Reuters as being in the Al-Radwan guest house showed more than a dozen bodies, several with gunshot wounds to the chest, slumped over one another. Reuters could not verify the date the video was filmed. Reuters reporters at the guest house on Friday saw bullet holes in the walls and bloodstains on red-striped cushions and on the concrete floor. Nearby, another family was still grieving their loss. Members of the Saraya family spoke in hushed tones in their home, its walls pockmarked by bullet holes. Older women dressed in black except for white headscarves sat in silence. Seven of their relatives were killed with an eighth friend in an execution-style killing in Tishreen Square after being taken from their homes last week by armed militants, according to relatives and friends. One of them, Hosam Saraya, was a 35-year-old Syrian-American citizen who had lived in Oklahoma. Videos verified by Reuters showed eight men in civilian clothes walking in a single file accompanied by armed militants. Reuters was able to identify the location as west of Tishreen Square, in the heart of Sweida, but could not independently verify the date the video was filmed. A separate video shows militants opening fire on the same unarmed men kneeling in the dirt of the roundabout in Tishreen Square. Reuters verified the video's location from the statue in the square. A friend of the family, Moatassem Jabahi, said the fate of the men was unknown until he received a phone call from someone who saw the bodies in the square. "We called everybody we know and went to Tishreen square and we saw them. Their bodies were torn with bullets. It was not a normal killing. It was a criminal killing," he told Reuters.
Times
18 hours ago
- Times
Syria returns to bloodshed: ‘I'm a mother who saw her sons killed'
For two long minutes, the gunmen emptied their Kalashnikovs into the car. Inside were six people — five students in their twenties and a schoolboy of 15. For two long minutes, Ghassan Kordab, 59, and his wife, Raja, 55, sat in the vehicle in front, unable to do anything but watch as their three sons and three nephews were massacred. 'I watched as they shot my sons,' said Kordab. 'They shouted, 'You Druze are pigs!' then opened fire. They kept shooting for two minutes. I saw flesh flying in the air. 'My wife was screaming, 'My children! I want my children!' I didn't know what to do.' The gunmen, who the couple insist belonged to Syrian government forces, then dragged the bodies out, stripping them of their rings and mobile phones, even their student backpacks. The horrific story is one of hundreds in Syria's southern province of Sweida, home to the country's Druze minority, which for two weeks has been engulfed in some of the deadliest violence since the Syrian civil war began in 2011. Clashes between Druze and Bedouin tribesmen, which started with the abduction of a local vegetable seller, spiralled so far out of control that tanks were sent in and Israel launched airstrikes on central Damascus. More than 1,400 died, scores of them in summary executions, and 176,000 people were displaced, according to the United Nations office for humanitarian affairs, UNOCHA. It has also left serious questions about the new administration of President al-Sharaa. He came in amid euphoric scenes in December after the forces he led toppled the long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad, but many fear that he and his followers have not shaken off their jihadist past. The Kordabs, who live in the main town of Sweida, had been trying to take the boys to safety in a mountain village on Tuesday, July 15, two days after the conflict erupted, and the day government forces had arrived, supposedly to quell the violence. 'We heard they were killing young men,' said Kordab. His wife insisted on coming, thinking that with a woman present, the militias would not target them. The couple were in one car and the boys in the car behind, driven by Fajir, 21, who was studying human resources. Having avoided one checkpoint which they said had bodies all around, they took another road — only to be stopped by two men with Kalashnikovs who they say were in military fatigues. 'My son greeted them with 'Salam alaikum' [peace be with you] then they shouted 'You Druze are pigs!' and began firing.' Kordab managed to accelerate round the corner and ran to neighbouring houses, begging for a weapon, but no one replied. Distraught, the couple returned to their ground floor apartment where they were soon under siege from militias shouting: 'We are coming for you Druze pigs.' Outside the apartment are several shot-up cars. Sitting inside with his grieving brothers and sisters-in-law and their daughters, all pale-faced and black-clad, Kordab shows his mobile with smiling photos of the boys — Hisham, the eldest, taking a master's in administration; Laith, 23, a postgraduate in engineering and Fajir. There were also pictures of his nephews Zeid, 20, studying IT; Omran, 24, also studying human resources, and Rebal, 15, who was still at school. 'They were all bright young men studying to help rebuild our country,' he said. 'All the males of our family have been killed.' Then Kordab shows photographs of the car, peppered with bullet holes, the interior stained with blood and what he says are the blown-out brains of two of his sons. 'I have no words,' sobbed his wife Raja. 'I am a mother who watched all her sons killed. There can be no worse fate.' It was three days before they could get out and retrieve their bodies for burial. At the funeral Kordab's father told them his house had been raided six times by thieving gangs. The following day Kordab got a call to say his father, 86, had been killed. He shows a photo of the old man lying in a pool of blood, his left foot chopped off. 'They not only killed him but tortured him,' he said. There is a long history of tensions between local Sunni Bedouin and Druze — part of an esoteric Shia sect spread over Syria, Lebanon and Israel. This latest violence started after the kidnapping on July 11 of a Druze vegetable truck driver on the highway to Damascus. Druze militias retaliated by abducting Bedouin tribesmen and a tit-for-tat campaign began which within two days became open warfare with militias on both sides killing and abducting people and burning houses. Amid this chaos, the interim Syrian government deployed troops, supposedly to restore calm but in fact escalating the tensions: some of these forces included militants who have since been accused of carrying out summary executions. This infuriated Israel, which has its own Druze population, many of which fight on the front lines in Gaza. Israel has occupied wide swathes of border areas since Assad's demise and demanded that southern Syria be a demilitarised zone. Apparently to protect them, Binyamin Netanyahu unexpectedly launched airstrikes, not only in Sweida but on the defence ministry in the centre of Damascus and the presidential palace, forcing Syrian forces to withdraw and prompting President Trump's officials to apparently exclaim: 'Bibi is crazy, he bombs everything all the time.' Armed Sunni tribesmen from across Syria — many of them extremists who regard the Druze as heretical — then headed south to fill the void left by retreating government troops. Not only did they carry Kalashnikovs but also moustache clippers to humiliate Druze men by cutting off their trademark facial hair. Fear hangs over Sweida, a town that is now under siege. You reach it through a series of government checkpoints then two kilometres of rocky no man's land before a checkpoint manned by local militias bearing the colourfully striped Druze flag. While much of Syria was flattened by 14 years of war — with rebuilding costs estimated at $400 billion, according to the Carnegie Endowment for Peace — Sweida was left relatively untouched. Three-storey mansions with solar panels and topiary hedges testify to the distance that the Druze kept from both Assad and the opposition, retaining a measure of autonomy which some of them used to carry out lucrative smuggling operations. Now, as you enter Sweida you see a burnt-out tank, a house destroyed by an airstrike, dozens of cars incinerated or shot, and charred shops and houses. Few people are leaving their homes and the men all have weapons. One was wearing a T-shirt printed with the word 'Peace', while pick-ups drove around mounted with anti-aircraft guns. A putrefying stench of death hangs over the national hospital where Akbal Sharaf, a radiology nurse, shows me round rooms spattered with bullet holes and a hall where she and the entire medical team were forced to kneel by militants who stormed the building, shooting the head of security. More than 100 body bags of unidentified corpses were left in the sun because the morgue was overflowing. They have now been buried in a mass grave. In an office a coroner shows photographs of the dead —some of the 509 bodies brought to the hospital, including a three-month-old girl. Stories of slaughter are round every corner. In the historic wood-ceilinged hall where elders gather, Hatim Radwan, 70, shows the bullet holes in the photographs of Druze ancestors and bloodstains on the floor. He described the moment when four gunmen came, smashed the glass table with their Kalashnikov then shot at him and 17 other men sheltering there, shouting, 'Kill them all! We don't want them identifying us.' A bullet only grazed Radwan's calf but 13 men were slain. 'I expected to die,' he said. 'I don't know how I survived.' No one knows how many people have been killed. Many bodies still lie in abandoned houses but the hospitals have run out of body bags for them. Although a ceasefire is in place, sporadic clashes are still continuing in the countryside and few believe this conflict is over. On Thursday afternoon the tribes were told by the government to pull out but many remain. That means the Druze inside Sweida town cannot leave. At a checkpoint near Bosra al Sham a group of tribesmen sat on the grass sharing a dinner given to them by government forces. Dressed exactly like jihadis, with black-and-white Shahada patches declaring 'There is one God but Allah', usually worn by members of Isis, they say they had come from Raqqa, Tartus and Doula, and had all been fighting since 2011. Initially reluctant to talk to someone from the western media, they eventually agreed. 'We are individuals from different places,' said Abdul Mohsin, 35, from Raqqa. 'What brings us together is Islam and blood, we came to protect our land and women.' 'It began with the Hijri gangs,' he says, referring to the followers of Sheikh Hijri, the most radical of the Druze leaders, 'with the external support of those who want to kill Sunni people and do in Syria what they did in Gaza.' 'They killed babies and foetuses and raped our women but international press do not report this,' he continued. 'Every action has a reaction so killing equals killing. Defending ourselves is our right.' The men were pulling back from Sweida but, he insisted, 'it's not finished. We're still in the area and fully ready. They still have our people in Sweida they took as human shields as well as our dead who they buried in a mass grave and won't let us bring out.' Asked about the Druze, he said: 'We don't know Druze — we only know brutal people. They don't have any place in my heart or the Arab world and should go to hell or to Israel.' 'Why should I accept to live with someone who cuts off a baby's head?' agreed his friend, Abdul Khadir, from Tartus. As the conflict continues, Stephan Sakalian, Syria director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, warned of humanitarian crises both in Sweida — where there are shortages of food, water and fuel for generators in 40-degree heat — but also among the displaced in camps in Daraa and Damascus. The government is refusing access to Sweida for all international organisations and only two aid convoys have been allowed, both from the Syrian Red Crescent. Among the vital supplies they took in were 950 body bags. No one knows how this will end. Not only is there no trust between the Bedouins and the Druze, but other minorities are fearful. The slaughter in Sweida has followed a killing spree in Latakia on the Syrian coast in March which left about 1,600 dead, mainly from the Alawite minority (which the Assads were from), and a bombing of a church in Damascus. Some minorities, such as the Kurds, are far more powerful, with their own army, the SDF. Many fear the country may descend into sectarian conflict as the country's new rulers struggle to assert their authority over a nation fractured by years of civil war and 50 years of dictatorship. 'This is the question all Syrians are asking inside and out,' says Rime Allaf, a Syrian analyst and author of the forthcoming It Started in Damascus, a chronicle of Syria and the revolution. She is hopeful that Al-Sharaa will be pushed to agree to training for the police and army, as the international and regional community, including Saudi Arabia, are determined for the new administration to succeed. On Thursday, as clashes continued in the south, officials from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries were at the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus signing off on a $6.4 billion investment package. Many are less sanguine. 'It's utterly scary to see this dangerous rise of sectarian incitement, online and offline, that is driving our country into a civil war,' said Razan Rashidi, executive director of the Syria Campaign, a human rights group that for years documented abuses of the Assad regime. It's a fear that can be seen in the disfigured face of an eight-year-old called Hala. She was shot in the face and right wrist and left for dead by gunmen who entered her house in Sweida, slaughtering her two sisters, Marianna, 13, and Nada, 17, along with their parents. Now she sits terrified, her once pretty face disfigured by a bullet which shattered her nose and her left eye socket, and tore open her cheek. A neighbour, Hashim, shows a gruesome video on his phone of soldiers entering their house and finding the bodies of her parents and sisters covered in blood. Hala is being looked after by her aunt, Ferial al-Khatab, who phoned her mother to see if she was OK. Instead it was answered by Hala, who said: 'Auntie, we have been shot and I am alone. Please come and get me.' Khatab said there was 'so much shooting and bombing going on I couldn't get to her'. Two days later, she found Hala in hospital. No one knows how she was taken there. On Saturday afternoon, Hala was being ferried to Israel, where surgeons hope to reconstruct her face. But the horrors of that day will be impossible to remove. 'They turned our kitchen from orange to red,' Hala said.
Reuters
a day ago
- Reuters
Syria, Israel agree to further talks on de-escalating conflict, Ekhbariya TV reports
July 26 (Reuters) - Syrian and Israeli officials agreed to meet again after no final accord was reached in U.S.-mediated talks in Paris on de-escalating the conflict in southern Syria, state-run Ekhbariya TV reported on Saturday, citing a diplomatic source. The source described the dialogue as "honest and responsible", in the first confirmation from the Syrian side that talks had taken place. On Friday, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said officials from both countries spoke about de-escalating the situation in Syria during the talks on Thursday. Representatives from the Syrian foreign ministry and intelligence officials were in attendance, Syria's Ekhbariya reported. Hundreds of people have been reported killed in clashes in the southern Syrian province of Sweida between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes and government forces. Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said was mass killings of Druze by government forces. Last week's clashes underlined the challenges interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in stabilising Syria and maintaining centralised rule, despite warming ties with the U.S. and his administration's evolving security contacts with Israel. The diplomatic source said the meeting involved initial consultations aimed at "reducing tensions and opening channels of communication amid an ongoing escalation since early December". The Syrian side held Israel responsible for the latest escalation, saying that the continuation of such "hostile policies" was threatening the region, according to the source. The Syrian delegation also said that Damascus would not accept "imposing new realities on the ground".
