3 days ago
Syria clashes continue as Sharaa regime struggles to enforce ceasefire
Sectarian clashes escalated in Syria's predominantly Druze region of Sweida as the country's new Islamist regime struggled to implement a ceasefire after days of bloodshed.
Shelling and firing were heard as Druze fighters reportedly pushed out Bedouin gunmen from Sweida city on Saturday.
The regime in Damascus announced that it had deployed forces in the southern region to maintain peace and urged all parties to stop fighting after hundreds of people were killed in nearly a week of clashes.
The interior ministry claimed late on Saturday that clashes had stopped after Sweida was cleared of Bedouin tribal fighters.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in the UK, said clashes since last week around Sweida had killed at least 940 people.
Interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former Isis and Al Qaeda leader who took power after the fall of Bashar al-Assad late last year, said "Arab and American' mediation had helped restore calm, only for the clashes to escalate on Sunday.
Mr Sharaa criticised Israel for launching airstrikes in Syria during the week. The attacks targeted Sweida as well as the new regime's defence ministry headquarters in Damascus.
Israeli forces had previously conducted a series of devastating attacks on military installations across Syria and invaded the border regions just as the Shaara regime was taking over last December. The attacks on Syrian military facilities have continued in the seven months since and Israel has said it wants areas of Syria near its border to remain demilitarised.
The Sweida province has been engulfed by almost a week of violence. It began with clashes between the Druze – a religious minority native to southern Syria, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and parts of Lebanon and Jordan – and Bedouin tribes. Government forces arrived to try and quell tensions, clashing with Druze gunmen and attacking the community.
The Bedouin clans announced on Sunday that they had withdrawn.
Mr Sharaa appealed to the Druze community for calm and urged the Bedouins to leave the city, saying they "cannot replace the role of the state in handling the country's affairs and restoring security".
The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shia Islam. More than half of the nearly one million Druze worldwide live in Syria.
Mansour Namour, a villager from near Sweida city, said mortar shells were still landing near his home on Saturday afternoon and that at least 22 people had been wounded.
A doctor in Sweida said the local hospital was full of bodies and wounded people from days of violence. "All the injuries are from bombs, some people with their chests wounded. There are also injuries to limbs from shrapnel," Omar Obeid, director of the hospital, told the Associated Press.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio demanded an end to "the rape and slaughter of innocent people" in the Mideast nation. "If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria free of ISIS and of Iranian control they must help end this calamity by using the security forces to prevent ISIS and any other violent jihadists from entering the area and carrying out massacres,' he said on Saturday.
"And they must hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities, including those in their own ranks."
US envoy Tom Barrack earlier announced that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire. Mr Barrack, who serves as America's Syria envoy as well as its ambassador to Turkey, said the truce was supported by Turkey, Jordan and other neighbouring countries.
The Syrian presidency announced an immediate ceasefire and urged an end to hostilities. Mr Sharaa said Syria would not be a "testing ground for partition, secession, or sectarian incitement".
"The Israeli intervention pushed the country into a dangerous phase that threatened its stability," he said in a televised speech.
The leader appeared to blame Druze gunmen for the latest clashes, accusing them of revenge attacks against Bedouins.
