The sectarian clashes erupt in Syria, killing 12

He said on Tuesday that the deadly clashes fed by sectarian tensions erupted on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 12 people, Syrian officials and the war control group on Tuesday.

The fighting began overnight from Monday to Tuesday in the Jaramana suburb in Damascus, which includes a large number of residents of the minority. This came after the circular of an audio clip on the social media of a man who insults the Prophet Muhammad. The clip is attributed to a cleric.

Religious figures denied the clergy and lessons in Jaramana this accusation. The Syrian Ministry of Interior said that the preliminary results showed that the cleric was not responsible and appealed to calm.

With the growth of the general anger of the clip, the unknown fighters in the armored vehicles gathered overnight and began to bomb the city, which led to heavy weapons battles, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group of screen in Britain.

It was the latest wave of sectarian violence that struck Syria since the Islamic rebels overthrew the dictator Bashar al -Assad In December, fears between the numerous minority groups in the country raises that these rebels – who are now controlling the government and the army – will marginalize or even target them.

The sound clip also extinguished the demonstrations in a number of other cities, as some demonstrators incited violence against the Druze, according to the observatory.

The observatory was not behind the attack on Jaramana, who also hit 15 people. But the local religious authorities in the city said in a statement that it carries the government “completely responsible for what happened and any exacerbation of the situation.”

The spiritual leader of the Syrian Druze community, Hakkkam Al -Hajri, accused the Islamic extremists of being subjected to the attacks. Mr. Al -Hijri is the voice critic of the leadership of the new rebels in the country.

The Ministry of Interior said that the Syrian security forces, which were deployed on the outskirts of Jaramana and put a security cordon throughout the region to prevent additional clashes, adding that members of the government’s security forces were among the losses in the clashes.

Syrian officials later met religious figures and community leaders from Jarramana. They agreed to hold the participants in the attack, according to the Syrian government news agency, SANA.

This was not the first time that the region has seen sectarian violence in recent months. Deadly fighting She erupted at Jaramana at the beginning of March as well, when DRUSE fought gun battles with the new government security forces.

Syria is mostly a Sunni Muslim nation, while the Druze exercises a secret religion and do not consider themselves Muslims. The rebels who led the overthrow of Mr. Assad belong to a Sunni Islamic group that was once linked to al -Qaeda.

The country’s new leaders have struggled to integrate A complex network of armed groups It works throughout the country in the new state apparatus. Many of the strongest tenses of talks with the government on their circumstances to integrate into the new army.

Syria has already seen one dangerous wave of Sectarian murders. These incidents occurred last month in two coastal provinces, including large groups of buffer, the group of minorities to which the Assad family belongs. The area once formed the heart of the support base for Mr. Assad.

Violence began as Assad’s loyalists launched a coordinated attack on the new government forces in the coastal area. Then thousands of militants supporting the boycott of the two provinces stormed and killed more than 1,600 civilians, most of whom were from Al -Awal, within a few days, according to the observatory.

The violence emphasized the difficulty faced by the new Syrian leaders in controlling the various former armed groups and rebels who joined the government.

“There is a real fear between citizens and the city’s residents that the situation may slip into a dangerous cycle, which repeats the dark experience in the coastal area,” said Rabi Monzer, a leader of a community of lessons from Jaramana.