Syria: Violence between Bedouins and Druze amid ongoing showdowns in the Mideast
Syrian forces were deployed in Al-Suwayda yesterday while the city was placed under a curfew. Clashes sparked by an isolated incident have left about a hundred people dead, 60 of them Druze. At stake are the province's new phase of "integration" with Ahmed al-Sharaa's Islamist Syria, as well as its relations with Israel. An attack on a church in Tartus was foiled.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – Syrian armed forces were deployed yesterday morning in Suwayda, the capital of the eponymous southern Syrian province, while a curfew was imposed across the entire area.
Despite gunfire that could be heard sporadically in the city, Syrian government troops appear to have succeeded in silencing Druze fighters, who had initially clashed with local Sunni militias before facing off with regular forces.
For their part, the city's Muslim, Christian, and Druze leaders and clerics issued a joint statement calling on the rebels to lay down their weapons and hand them over to lawful forces, relying on ongoing discussions to stabilise the city and the province.
But what has happened since Sunday in the predominantly Druze province of Suwayda?
Following a seemingly isolated incident, the aggressive abduction of a Druze vegetable vendor on the Suwayda-Damascus highway by settled Sunni Bedouins, a minority in the region, large-scale clashes erupted between these two communities, particularly in the Bedouin quarter of the city of Suwayda and the surrounding villages.
This has resulted in around 100 deaths in two days, including 60 Druze, two women, two children, and seven other unidentified people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
Some agencies have reported that the victims were mostly fighters. However, videos posted yesterday show hostages, frightened and often humiliated teenagers, fighters posing in front of their bloodied victims as if they were game, and vans piled high with corpses.
Some houses were set on fire during the clashes, which spread to villages in the region, reawakening memories of the massacres of Alawites on the Syrian coast and the April-May clashes in Jaramana, a predominantly Druze neighbourhood in Damascus.
According to various sources, Bedouin fighters participated alongside government forces in the assault on Druze communities. "They are killing, burning, and looting," Druze sources claim.
Druze leaders now accuse the new government in Damascus of playing the old "firefighter-arsonist" game, already used by the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship, that is, of deliberately provoking clashes between rival factions to better extend its control over the population.
The accusation was made by one of the province's Druze religious leaders, Sheikh Hikmat el-Hijri, who has consistently denied the Syrian government the right to enter Suwayda, demanding "international protection," which observers understand as Israeli protection.
Yet the Druze population remains reticent about this argument. For example, only 5 per cent of the Druze in the Golan Heights annexed by Israel have accepted Israeli citizenship, even though it brings social benefits.
This argument resonates even less after the meeting in Saudi Arabia between US President Donald Trump and Syrian President Ahmed al-Shareh, under the patronage of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the lifting of US and European sanctions on Syria, the US rejection of the partition of Syria, reiterated by US envoy Tom Barrak, which puts an end to the Israeli dream of dividing the Middle East into distinct sectarian entities, not to mention the direct contacts in Baku (Azerbaijan) between Syrians and Israelis, and the planned Syrian presence at the European Parliament session devoted to the Middle East.
Certainly, the Israelis reacted on Monday in the Golan Heights by bombing Syrian tanks, but this was less to protect the Druze than to demarcate their own defensive perimeter. Moreover, while the Israeli Defence Minister reiterated Israel's desire to protect the Druze in Syria, it is certain that this will not be with ground troops.
Yesterday's epilogue confirms, in a way, the limits of the game played by the Israelis, who will no longer be able to "protect the Druze" as they understood it just a few months ago.
However, the fact remains that what is currently taking shape is not a new Middle East, but a Middle East of the mightiest; and it seems that Israel's entire geopolitical position is at stake, one based solely, for the moment, on a logic of force and cunning, skilfully disguised as an American-style "Abrahamic peace," justifying everything, even the unjustifiable. Moreover, today the IDF said it struck “several armored vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, as well as access routes, to disrupt their arrival in the area,” after identifying an armored column moving toward Sweida on Monday night. The attacks were carried out “per the directives of the political echelon,” the army added.
Fundamentally, the clashes in Suwayda reflect the Israeli-US logic, with the Arab world having no other choice than to bow to the American game and sign non-belligerence agreements with an Israel, which has total control of the airspace, but retains the right to refuse "normalization" and limits its relations with this state, as Egypt and Jordan do, to its main security, energy and trade needs.
Jumblatt Supports the Syrian State
As realistic as ever, Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who enjoys a strong following within his community, called on Monday for a cessation of fighting, declaring himself in favour of "restoring security and achieving reconciliation in Suwayda, under the auspices of the Syrian state," asserting that "Suwayda, like Jaramana, Homs, and all regions of Syria, is under the protection of the Syrian state.” Mr. Jumblatt clearly opposes any recourse to "foreign, and obviously Israeli, protection."
According to AsiaNews, former Education Minister Abbas Halabi, a close friend of Mr Jumblatt, suggested that the Syrian government had skilfully taken advantage of these clashes, which originated in an incident, to weaken the pro-Israel Druze separatist camp.
In any case, added Mr Halabi, the Druze in the Arab world remain deeply rooted in their culture. They know that allegiance to Israel will only bring them headaches and worries whose difference is already causing to Israel in the Arab world.
For his part, Bassem Fakhr, spokesperson for the Men of Dignity militia, one of the main armed Druze groups, along with the Mountain Brigade, said they are ready to join a new national army, but under certain conditions. He noted that an agreement with the Ministry of Defence had been reached in January 2025 to establish a military and security entity formed from the "Sons of Suwayda," which would control the city under supervised by the authorities. The coming days will determine whether that old agreement remains or lapses.
Churches in the crosshairs
Finally, news has also come from Syria of new threats, thwarted, against Christians, following the murder of a Christian businessman in Homs and the massacre at the Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus, a still-open wound for a community with an uncertain future.
In the latest case, three weeks after the attack against St Elias, another church narrowly escaped an attack. On Sunday, three people were arrested after being caught with 20 kg of explosives – as well as flyers, slogans, and extremist symbols – near the Christian church in al-Kharibat, a village near Tartus, in the west of the country.
“The people saw something suspicious and informed the security forces," a local source told Open Doors partners in Syria. "They chased them and found them with a lot of explosives and leaflets.” The suspects have been taken into custody, but the community is terrified of future attacks.
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15/09/2021 13:55
