16-07-2025
How a roadside robbery triggered an unexpected new Middle East war
Vegetable seller Fadlallah Dawara was on his way home on Sunday night when his truck was hijacked by a group of armed men.
Mr Dawara was pulled out of his car, beaten, and abandoned – blindfolded – on the side of the road.
Attackers confiscated seven million Syrian pounds (about £400), his phone and absconded with his truck, vegetables and all.
That account, given to media in Suwayda, a south-western city in Syria, is what sparked tit-for-tat kidnappings in retaliation, which then swelled into deadly clashes between local rival militias.
By Monday, the Syrian government had sent its forces into the surrounding countryside in an attempt to restore order. Israel, worried about a foreign military build-up near its territory, sent fighter jets to attack the Syrian tanks.
The next two days would see tensions rising to a fever pitch as Syrian government forces advanced deeper into Suwayda. The Israeli military stepped up its strikes, bombing around the city, and also in Damascus, the capital of Syria – including the ministry of defence, pictured below.
A first ceasefire fell apart within hours; it remains to be seen if a second one, agreed Thursday, will hold. Some estimates put the death toll at around 300 people, though true figures remain unclear given an internet and electricity blackout in Suwayda.
This latest spate of intense, deadly violence appears to be the most significant threat facing the ability of Syria's new government to consolidate control over the richly diverse country after a surprise rebel offensive toppled longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad last December.
Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the rebel coalition that toppled Assad, and others he installed at the top of the government are primarily Sunni Muslim, prompting worries of discrimination and violence amongst the country's many religious and ethnic minorities.
Those concerns only deepened in March, when sectarian killings swept through the Alawite religious minority, a sect to which the former leader Assad belongs. One estimate put the full death count at 1,500 Syrian Alwites massacred, according to Reuters.
Fears that revenge killings would continue have lingered, and many remain terrified that the new guard – despite noises to the contrary – will eventually revert to the dark, deadly, authoritarian ways of the old guard.
'The attacks are very similar to the previous regime's methodology where they would completely decimate civilian areas to make an example to anyone who wishes to stand up in the face of the government's tyranny,' said Abu Jawad, 29, a member of the Druze minority in Syria, whose name has been changed for fear of retribution.
He accused the Syrian government of covering up its violent actions, which range from 'looting, beating, and dehumanising civilians all the way to rape and civilian executions.'
Mr Dawara, the vegetable seller robbed, setting off the violent events of the last four days, is also Druze, an Arab sect of about one million people who primarily live in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Sectarian violence that in recent days swept Suwayda, a stronghold of the Druze community, was primarily between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes that took revenge, first in response to the attack against Mr Dawara.
A few videos, some unverified, began emerging online, showing men in military attire forcibly shaving off the moustaches of Druze men – a serious, provocative attack as they are considered an important cultural and religious symbol for the sect.
In one, an elderly cleric – now identified as Sheikh Merhej Shahin, 80 – is seen, in front of his home as a man in military gear shaves off his moustache.
The video started circulating online on Tuesday, and his family lost touch with him for a few hours after, with calls to his phone unanswered. Finally, after hours, someone picked up.
'My aunt repeatedly tried to call him, and at around 8pm, someone answered her call and mockingly told her he met his end,' Christine Shahin, the late sheikh's granddaughter, said.
When Syrian government forces started advancing, his family begged him to leave, but he insisted on staying to bury his grandson, who had been killed a day earlier by sniper fire.
Local Druze fighters, suspicious of Mr al-Sharaa's pledge to protect all Syrians, have clashed against Syrian government forces, ambushing and executing some, while taking others hostage, as experts have noted based on various videos emerging online.
Concern that the violence could spiral out of concern prompted Hikmat al-Hijri, one of the three most senior Druze spiritual leaders in Syria, to issue an unprecedented statement, directly calling the leaders of the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to take a stand against such persecution.
'Save Suwayda,' he wrote in a statement. 'For our people are being exterminated and being killed in cold blood, with the killer not distinguishing between young and old, woman or child, doctor or sheikh, and they are destroying churches and houses of worship.
'These are massacres being committed before the world's eyes and the silence continues to kill,' he wrote. 'We call on the international community to bear its humanitarian and ethical responsibilities to stop these systematic and organised massacres.'
Mr al-Hijri's stance doesn't represent the views of all Druze, as many want nothing to do with Israel, instead believing that Israel is exploiting instability in Syria to advance its own domestic security interests, rather than doing so on behalf of the Druze as the military claims.
'Israel has been bombing long before any of the [latest] aggression toward the Druze sect even began,' said Abu Jawad.
'The Israelis are using this false claim of 'protecting the Druze' to further the divide between the people of Syria and the Druze community…we never asked for our country to be attacked by foreign occupation aggressors.'
Either way, the violence underscores some of the biggest challenges the Syrian government still needs to contend with: how to handle aggression from neighbouring Israel, and how best to agree a security arrangement in minority areas, like Suwayda, where locals would rather have members of their own communities, rather than government fighters, installed to maintain order going forward.
As night fell on Thursday, Syrians with friends and family in Suwayda were waiting desperately for any news of their loved ones – hard to come by, as communications largely remained down.
Nearing 9pm, video surfaced online showing piles of dead bodies in the corridors and beds of a hospital in the city – a massacre that had purportedly taken place earlier, and a reminder that the bloodshed was perhaps far from over.
