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The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
Clashes in Syria's Druze heartland: who are the combatants?
The Druze-majority city of Sweida in southern Syria witnessed a week of heavy clashes coupled with an offensive by pro-government troops. A ceasefire appeared to be holding on Sunday. Sweida is the capital of its province with the same name, which is home to 270,000 Druze, making it the heartland of the sect in Syria. Over the past week, the minority suffered the biggest loss of life since mounting a failed revolt against French colonial rule from 1925 to 1927. Druze sources say that it will take days to find out how many members of the sect were killed, with many civilians killed in their homes in Sweida and surrounding villages. However, the toll could be more than 1,000, the sources said. Hundreds of the attacking forces, composed of regular troops and paramilitary, are estimated to have been killed, many by Israeli air raids. The sect is an offshoot of Islam and the Druze are mainly present in Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Druze resistance emerges Before the attacks on the city on Sunday, about 3,000 Druze militiamen in Sweida were largely under the command of Laith Al Baalous, a Druze figure. Mr Al Baalous had advocated for accommodation with the government, led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an offshoot of Al Qaeda. The group led the ouster of the regime of former president Bashar Al Assad in December. Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri, the most prominent in a triumvirate comprising the Druze spiritual leadership, resisted attempts by Mr Al Shara to control Sweida by appointing new security troops in the province, drawn from the ranks of HTS and its allies. However, violence between the government and the Druze broke out first in Damascus, when militia allies of Mr Al Shara attacked Druze residential areas, killing dozens of civilians. The attacks stopped after Israel bombed targets belonging to the Syrian military and its auxiliaries in the capital and its outskirts. Israel said it has been carrying out strikes to defend the Druze community but some political analysts say Israel also wants the central authorities to remain weak. The violence was followed by talks between Druze representatives and Damascus on handing control of Sweida governorate, but Mr Hijri resisted a proposal by Mr Al Shara to post 300 to 500 Druze security personnel allied with the president. During negotiations on readmitting former Druze soldiers into the new army, Mr Al Shara also rejected 2,700 names of out of 3,600 presented by Mr Hijri, according to sources in Jordan who have been following the events. Mr Al Hijri also labelled the Damascus government as extremist and anti-democratic. The stalemate over the admission of HTS-linked security troops to Sweida set the scene for the government offensive, which came after clashes broke out between armed residents of a Sunni Bedouin quarter and Druze gunmen. The clashes where prompted by the abduction of Adlalah Duwara, a vegetable seller and member of the Druze sect, while driving his lorry on the main road from Sweida to Damascus, which is under government control. His tribe responded by abducting a man in a Bedouin Sunni neighbourhood of Sweida, which started a cycle of abduction between the two communities. The scale of attacks and killings during the subsequent government offensive led Druze factions to coalesce around Mr Al Hijri. This newfound unity, however, could be tested if Sweida remains under siege and no supplies reach the city. Sweida's defenders Over the past week, Mr Al Hijri took control over an umbrella organisation of 3,000 fighters in Sweida, called the military council. It has been joined by thousands of Druze residents of the province, many of whom are ex-soldiers who took up arms to defend their homes. Many had acquired weapons from the 15 Division, a unit of the former army that was based in Sweida. 'They are still short of anti-tank weapons,' said one of the sources in Jordan, adding that intimate knowledge of the terrain, as well as Israeli air support had helped the Druze ward off the offensive. Although Israel has not attacked any Syrian targets from the air in the past 24 hours, its drones and other aerial reconnaissance remain posted over the skies of Sweida and over Deraa city, the launch pad of the government attacks, the source said. Attacking forces and their core The thrust of the initial offensive on Sweida last week was carried out by about 14,000 troops and auxiliaries. They were comprised of regular infantry divisions, backed by tank formations and spearheaded by sniper and special operations units. A unit of mostly Uighur foreign fighters, who specialise in penetrating urban defences and are now part of the army, was also posted to the northern outskirts of Sweida. However, Israeli air strikes forced these troops to withdraw from Sweida city to the northern and western countryside. A second wave of attacks started on Saturday, and although the fighting has been framed as being between Bedouin and Druze, regional security sources said government troops were also heavily involved. The new force, one of the sources said, is mostly the same troops who initially attacked Sweida. 'This time, they wore [tribal] robes,' one official said, adding that the government transported thousands of Bedouin in the last several days from Aleppo in the north and Deir Ezzor in the east to the western outskirts of Sweida, but the main combatants, remained government forces. The Bedouin who went to fight in Sweida with government backing belong to the Mawali and Baqqara tribes in Deir Ezzor, as well as the Okeidat tribe in Aleppo. Many members of these tribes had fought on the side of the former Assad regime in the 2011 to 2024 civil war but turned loyal to the new authorities after HTS ousted the former system. 'If authorities in Damascus want to preserve any chance of achieving a unified, inclusive and peaceful Syria … they must help end this calamity by using their security forces to prevent ISIS and any other violent jihadists from entering the area and carrying out massacres,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X. After the US warning, issued by Mr Rubio, government troops and their auxiliaries have retreated from a line of villages and towns to the west of Sweida, but remain close by, in the governorate of Deraa. Among their main commanders is Shaher Amran, a security head in Deraa province, Ahmad Dalati, who is in charge of security in Sweida, Mouwafaq Al Dokhi, a Bedouin security official, and an intelligence operative known as Khattab, head of a newly created intelligence unit named Unit 555.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Syrian presidency declares ‘comprehensive' ceasefire in Sweida after deadly clashes
The Syrian presidency has declared an 'immediate and comprehensive' ceasefire in Sweida, saying internal security forces had been deployed in the southern province after almost a week of fighting in the predominantly Druze area which has killed more than 700 people. Armed tribes had clashed with Druze fighters on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure. The presidency also said in a statement on Saturday that any breaches of the ceasefire would be a 'clear violation to sovereignty', and urged all parties to commit to it and end hostilities in all areas immediately. Syria's internal security forces had begun deploying in Sweida 'with the aim of protecting civilians and putting an end to the chaos', the interior ministry spokesperson Noureddine al-Baba said in a statement on Telegram. A statement on Saturday by one of the three religious leaders of the Syrian Druze community, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, said the ceasefire would guarantee safe exit for community members and the opening of humanitarian corridors for besieged civilians to leave. The US special envoy, Thomas Barrack, had announced hours earlier that Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire, after Israel sided with the Druze factions and joined the conflict, including by bombing a government building in Damascus. The UN had also called for an end to the fighting and demanded an independent investigation of the violence, which has killed at least 718 people from both sides since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The SOHR reported on Friday that the humanitarian situation in Sweida had 'dramatically deteriorated' owing to an acute shortage of food and medical supplies. All hospitals were out of service because of the conflict and looting was widespread in the city. 'The situation in the hospital is disastrous. The corpses have begun to rot, there's a huge amount of bodies, among them women and children,' a surgeon at Sweida national hospital said over the phone. The renewed fighting raised questions about the authority of the Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose interim government faces misgivings from the country's minorities after the killing of 1,500 mostly Alawite civilians on the Syrian coast in March. It was Sharaa who ordered government forces to pull out of Sweida, saying that mediation by the US and others had helped to avert a 'large-scale escalation' with Israel. A number of sources told Reuters that Sharaa had initially misread how Israel would respond to him deploying troops to the country's south earlier this week, having been encouraged by the Barrack saying Syria should be centrally governed as one country. When Israel targeted Syrian troops and Damascus on Wednesday, bombarding the Syrian defence ministry headquarters in the centre of the capital and striking near the presidential palace, it took the Syrian government by surprise, the sources said. Druze people are seen as a loyal minority within Israel and often serve in its military. An Israeli military spokesperson said the strikes were a message to Syria's president regarding the events in Sweida. But the Syrian government mistakenly believed it had a green light from the US and Israel to dispatch its forces south despite months of Israeli warnings not to do so, according to the Reuters sources, which included Syrian political and military officials, two diplomats and regional security sources. The violence erupted last Sunday after the kidnapping of a Druze vegetable merchant by local Bedouin triggered tit-for-tat abductions, the SOHR said. The government sent in the army, promising to put a halt to the fighting, but witnesses and the SOHR said the troops had sided with the Bedouin and committed many abuses against Druze civilians as well as fighters. The organisation reported that 19 civilians had been killed in an 'horrific massacre' when Syrian defence ministry forces and general security forces entered the town of Sahwat al-Balatah. A truce was negotiated on Wednesday after the Israeli bombardment, allowing Druze factions and clerics to maintain security in Sweida as government forces pulled out. Sharaa said in a speech on Thursday that Druze groups would be left to govern security affairs in the southern province in what he described as a choice to avoid war. 'We sought to avoid dragging the country into a new, broader war that could derail it from its path to recovery from the devastating war,' he said. 'We chose the interests of Syrians over chaos and destruction.' But clashes resumed on Thursday as Syrian state media reported that Druze groups had launched revenge attacks on Bedouin villages. Bedouin tribes had fought alongside government forces against Druze fighters earlier in the week. On Friday, about 200 tribal fighters clashed with armed Druze men from Sweida using machine guns and shells, an Agence France-Presse correspondent said, while the SOHR reported fighting and 'shelling on neighbourhoods in Sweida city'. Sweida has been heavily damaged in the fighting and its mainly Druze inhabitants have been deprived of water and electricity. Communication lines have also been cut. Rayan Maarouf, the editor-in-chief of the local news outlet Suwayda 24, said the humanitarian situation was 'catastrophic'. 'We cannot find milk for children,' he told AFP. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, has demanded 'independent, prompt and transparent investigations into all violations' adding that 'those responsible must be held to account'. The International Committee for the Red Cross said 'health facilities are overwhelmed, medical supplies are dwindling and power cuts are impeding the preservation of human remains in overflowing morgues'. 'The humanitarian situation in Sweida is critical. People are running out of everything,' said Stephan Sakalian, the head of ICRC's delegation in Syria. Syria's minority groups have been given what many see as only token representation in the interim government since the former president Bashar al-Assad fled the country, according to Bassam Alahmad, the executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, a civil society organisation. 'It's a transitional period. We should have a dialogue, and they [the minorities] should feel that they're a real part of the state,' Alahmad said. Instead, the incursion into Sweida sent a message that the new authorities would use military force to 'control every part of Syria'. 'Bashar Assad tried this way' and failed, he said. Government supporters, however, fear its decision to withdraw could signal to other minorities that it is acceptable to demand their own autonomous regions, which they say would fragment and weaken the country. If Damascus ceded security control of Sweida to the Druze, 'of course everyone else is going to demand the same thing', said Abdel Hakim al-Masri, a former official in the Turkish-backed regional government in north-west Syria before Assad's fall. 'This is what we are afraid of,' he told the Associated Press.
Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Who are the Druze and why is Israel attacking Syria?
Syria's government has withdrawn its forces from the southern Druze city of Sweida after an Israeli military intervention that targeted troops and their headquarters in Damascus. The fighting killed dozens and set back efforts to unify the country after 13 years of civil war. The Druze follow a syncretic faith that is an offshoot of Islam. They are minorities in Syria, where there are 700,000, Israel, where there are about 150,000, and Lebanon. In Israel, they are seen as a powerful minority that holds senior positions in the military. In Syria, many of the Druze live in Sweida, which had balked at joining the new government. They have a number of powerful defence militias, including the Mountain Brigade, and several competing commanders. A prominent one is the religious chief Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who has opposed coming under the rule of Damascus. Druze in Syria and Lebanon have been careful not to align themselves with Israel, which is hugely unpopular in both countries. However, the Syrian branch has been in touch with their brethren in Israel and some view Israel as their best protector against Damascus. Israel had warned the government against sending troops to the south, saying it wanted to protect the Druze. The intervention came after Syrian soldiers entered Sweida to end fighting between the Druze and local Bedouin, which quickly turned into sectarian clashes between Sunni government soldiers and Druze militia in which about 200 people have died, according to a Syrian war monitor. Israel had also sought to carve out a demilitarised buffer zone in southern Syria along its borders. • Syria vows to hunt 'outlaws' after Israel strikes Damascus Israeli leaders have called President Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander, an unreformed jihadist. Some ministers have even called for his assassination. Sharaa, for his part, has held talks with Israel to de-escalate the tensions, while suggesting he might be open to negotiating a broader agreement. Sharaa received a boost in May when he met President Trump, who praised the leader and lifted sanctions on the country. Sharaa was forced to withdraw his troops after the Israeli airstrikes and US mediation. By doing so, he conceded Sweida for now as a de facto Israeli protectorate, with no armed presence of his government. The affair has set back his efforts to unify the fragmented country after he led rebels into overthrowing the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. Other holdouts, such as the independent Kurds in east Syria, are even less likely now to join his government.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Syria 's government and Druze leaders announce renewed ceasefire
Syrian government officials and leaders in the Druze religious minority have announced a renewed ceasefire after days of clashes that threatened to unravel the country's postwar political transition and drew military intervention by Israel. Convoys of government forces began withdrawing from the city of Sweida, but it was not immediately clear if the agreement, announced by Syria's Interior Ministry and in a video message by a Druze religious leader, would hold. A previous ceasefire announced on Tuesday, local time, quickly fell apart, and prominent Druze leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri, disavowed the new agreement. Israeli strikes continued after the ceasefire announcement. The announcement came after Israel launched rare air strikes in the heart of Damascus, an escalation in a campaign that it said was intended to defend the Druze and push Islamic militants away from its border. The Druze form a substantial community in Israel as well as in Syria and are seen in Israel as a loyal minority, often serving in the military. The escalation in Syria began with tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze armed factions in the southern province of Sweida. Government forces that intervened to restore order clashed with the Druze militias, but also, in some cases, attacked civilians. The violence appeared to be the most serious threat yet to efforts by Syria's new rulers to consolidate control of the country after a rebel offensive led by Islamist insurgent groups ousted longtime despotic leader Bashar Assad in December, ending a nearly 14-year civil war. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa called the Druze an integral part of Syria and denounced Israel's actions as sowing division, in state television footage shown on early Thursday. "We affirm that protecting your rights and freedoms is among our top priorities," he said, specifically addressing Druze people in Syria. "We reject any attempt — foreign or domestic — to sow division within our ranks. We are all partners in this land, and we will not allow any group to distort the beautiful image that Syria and its diversity represent." He said Israel sought to break Syrian unity and turn the country into a theatre of chaos, but that Syrians were rejecting division. He said Syrians did not fear renewed war but sought the path of Syrian interest over destruction. "We assigned local factions and Druze spiritual leaders the responsibility of maintaining security in [Sweida], recognising the gravity of the situation and the need to avoid dragging the country [into a new war]," he said. Syria's new, primarily Sunni Muslim authorities have faced suspicion from religious and ethnic minorities, especially after clashes between government forces and pro-Assad armed groups in March spiralled into sectarian revenge attacks. Hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority, to which Assad belongs, were killed. No official casualty figures have been released for the latest fighting since Monday, when the Interior Ministry said 30 people had been killed. The UK-based war monitor, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 300 people had been killed as of Wednesday morning, local time, including four children, eight women, and 165 soldiers and security forces. Israel has launched dozens of strikes targeting government troops and convoys heading into Sweida, and on Wednesday, struck the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters next to a busy square in Damascus that became a gathering point after Assad's fall. That strike killed three people and injured 34, Syrian officials said. Another Israeli strike hit near the presidential palace in the hills outside Damascus. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said after the initial Damascus air strike in a post on X that the "painful blows have begun." Israel has taken an aggressive stance toward Syria's new leaders, saying it doesn't want Islamist militants near its borders. Israeli forces have seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory along the border with the Golan Heights and launched hundreds of air strikes on military sites in Syria. Mr Katz said in a statement that the Israeli army "will continue to attack regime forces until they withdraw from the area — and will also soon raise the bar of responses against the regime if the message is not understood". An Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations said the army was preparing for a "multitude of scenarios" and that a brigade, normally comprising thousands of soldiers, was being pulled out of Gaza and sent to the Golan Heights. Syria's Defense Ministry had earlier blamed militias in the Druze-majority area of Sweida for violating the ceasefire agreement reached on Tuesday. Videos surfaced on social media of government-affiliated fighters forcibly shaving the moustaches of Druze sheikhs and stepping on Druze flags and pictures of religious clerics. Other videos showed Druze fighters beating captured government forces and posing by their bodies. AP reporters in the area saw burned and looted houses. The observatory said at least 27 people were killed in "field executions". Druze in the Golan gathered along the border fence to protest the violence against Druze in Syria. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Washington was "very concerned" about the Israel-Syria violence, which he attributed to a "misunderstanding," and has been in touch with both sides to restore calm. AP
The Independent
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Syrian forces withdraw from Sweida after ceasefire goes into effect
Syrian government forces largely withdrew from the southern province of Sweida Thursday following days of vicious clashes with militias of the Druze minority. Under a ceasefire agreement reached the day before, which largely halted the hostilities, Druze factions and clerics have been appointed to maintain internal security in Sweida, Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa said in an address broadcast early Thursday. The dayslong fighting threatened to unravel Syria's postwar political transition and brought in further military intervention by its powerful neighbor Israel, which on Wednesday struck the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters in the heart of Damascus. Israel said it was acting to protect the Druze religious minority. Druze leaders and Syrian government officials reached a ceasefire deal mediated by the United States, Turkey and Arab countries. Convoys of government forces started withdrawing from the city of Sweida overnight as Syrian state media said the withdrawal was in line with the ceasefire agreement and the military operation against the Druze factions had ended. It remained unclear if the ceasefire would hold after the agreement was announced by Syria's Interior Ministry and in a video message by a Druze religious leader. A previous agreement Tuesday quickly broke down after being dismissed by prominent Druze cleric Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hijri. The escalation in Syria began with tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between local Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze armed factions in the southern province of Sweida. Government forces that intervened to restore order clashed with the Druze militias, but also in some cases attacked civilians. The Syrian government has not issued a casualty count from the clashes, but some rights groups and monitors say dozens of combatants on both sides have been killed, as well as dozens of largely Druze civilians killed in sectarian attacks. Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says at least 374 combatants and civilians were killed in the clashes and Israeli strikes, among them dozens of civilians killed in the crossfire or in targeted attacks against the minority group. Videos circulated on social media showed government forces and allies humiliating Druze clerics and residents, looting homes and killing civilians hiding inside their houses. Syrian Druze from Sweida told The Associated Press that several family members who were unarmed had been attacked or killed. Al-Sharaa appealed to them in his address and vowed to hold perpetrators to account. 'We are committed to holding accountable those who wronged our Druze brethren," he said, calling the Druze an 'integral part of this nation's fabric" who are under the protection of state law and justice, which safeguards the rights of everyone without exception. The Druze community had been divided over how to approach al-Sharaa's de facto Islamist rule over Syria after largely celebrating the downfall of Bashar Assad and his family's decades-long dictatorial rule. They feared persecution after several attacks from the Islamic State militant group and al-Qaeda-affiliates the Nusra Front during Syria's 14-year civil war. While it first appeared many Druze hoped to resolve matters diplomatically, with al-Sharaa promising an inclusive Syria for all its different communities, over time they became more skeptical, especially after a counterinsurgency in the coastal province in February turned into targeted attacks against the Alawite religious minority. The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.
