Syrian leader Ahmed Al Sharaa accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to protect its Druze minority yesterday after US intervention to help achieve a truce in fighting between government forces and Druze fighters.
Overnight, the Islamist-led government’s troops withdrew from the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, where scores of people have been killed in days of conflict pitting Druze fighters against government troops and Bedouin tribes.
But in a worrying development, a military commander for the Bedouin said their fighters had launched a new offensive in Sweida province against Druze fighters and that the truce only applied to government forces.
The Bedouins, a collection of farmers who have long-standing frictions with the Druze, were seeking to free detained colleagues, he told Reuters. A round of fighting between the Bedouins and Druze earlier this week prompted the government to send troops to Sweida to quell the fighting, but the violence then grew until a ceasefire was declared.
The violence has underlined the challenges that Sharaa faces in stabilising Syria and exerting centralised rule, despite his warming ties with the US and his administration’s evolving security contacts with Israel.
One local journalist said he had counted more than 60 bodies in the streets of Sweida in south Syria yesterday morning. Ryan Marouf of Suwayda24 told Reuters he had found a family of 12 people killed in one house, including women and an elderly man.
On Wednesday, Israel launched air strikes in Damascus, while also hitting government forces in the south, demanding they withdraw and saying Israel aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
Israel, which bombed Syria frequently under the rule of ousted President Bashar Al Assad, has struck the country repeatedly this year saying it will not allow them to deploy forces in areas of southern Syria near its border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had established a policy demanding the demilitarisation of a swathe of territory near the border, stretching from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the Druze Mountain, east of Sweida.
Amid reports of revenge attacks on Bedouin yesterday, leading Druze Sheikh Hikmat Al Hajari called for peaceful Bedouin tribes to be respected and not harmed.
l Over the past two days, the Foreign Ministers of Bahrain, Jordan, the UAE, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Egypt, held intensive talks on developments in Syria. The ministers reiterated their united position and joint efforts to support the Syria in rebuilding the country on the basis of security, stability, unity, sovereignty, and their citizens’ rights.
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