Seven months of relative calm in Syria reached a bloody end of last week, when what started as local skirmishes escalated to the worst fight since Bashar al -Assad’s fall in December.
The fighting took place in Sweida, a southern Syrian boycott that has remained outside the control of the government since the forces now led by President Ahmed Al -Shara, Damascus and took control of the country last year.
Suwaida dominates the Druze sect, a Ibrahimi group whose beliefs include aspects of Christianity, Islam and other religions. It also hosts a large group of Bedouins, which is a Sunni Arab group that lives in a semi -Nomadi lifestyle as sheep.
The clashes between the two groups were repeated, but none of them went up to anything near the degree that was reached last week, which began after the kidnapping of a Druze merchant on July 11.
By the time when a fragile truce was created after more than a week, both the Syrian and Israeli government forces were involved, 150,000 people were displaced and the area was left to destabilize – fading with more violence.
The first accident led to two days of escalating fighting between Druze and Badwin militias. On July 14, the Syrian government deployed the forces in the province to intervene – until then is completely absent from Soyua.
Some government forces have been ambushed and killed by the Druze Stone fighters, a controversial spiritual leader who studies a great impact in the region.
The unstable situation of the region and the desire of Damascus contributed to reaffirming the boycott in the escalation, according to Charles Leicester, director of the Syria Program at the Middle East Institute, and he is a non -profit suffocating in Washington, DC.
Leicester said: “There was a kind of escalation to escalate from kidnappings and revenge, which is difficult to control unless there is an intensive and translated negotiation.”
“I think there is a extent that Damascus allowed events to play for two or three days this time, in order to raise the issue, from its point of view, that this chaos will only continue as long as (Sweden) outside government control.”
Violence against Druze
With the outbreak of fighting on a large scale between Druze and the Syrian government forces, the Damascus forces advanced and then advanced to the city of Sweden itself. What happened there is the vast Gulf show between the organized militias loosely, which is now the new Syrian army.
Some are more than professional fighters, trained during the era of Sharra for years and reliable enough to obey orders not to harm civilians. Other elements are more than the sect and extremism – and with a modern history of the massacre of minorities, as happened against the Alawite sect on the Syrian coast in March.
“We were at home when I arrived at the first fighters (the government),” said a Swida resident in her twenties. “At first, they just asked if we had any weapons – there was no problem with them.”
CBC News does not name a woman, because she is afraid to take revenge publicly.
“Soon after, we received a call from one of our elderly relatives, people in the eighties,” she said. “The other fighters came to their home and told them that they had a better departure if they wanted to live. They were still lucky. We soon learned that some of our other relatives were executed in their homes.”
Incident reports against Druze residents from Suwaida, which was immersed by social media. According to what happened, one of the worst works in the city’s main hospital, which BBC visited in the days after the fighting. Doctors there said that the Syrian government fighters had killed “dozens of patients, from young to old.”
Israeli participation
At this stage, a new representative entered the battle: Israel, which has repeatedly warned the Syrian government that it would enter strongly if its forces are transferred to the south of the country. The two sides met on July 12, although Lister says it may have been a misunderstanding about whether Syria had a green light to confirm control of Suwayda.
On July 15, Israel carried out air strikes on the Syrian government forces in Sowida and other places in southern Syria, where the tanks were hit and dozens of soldiers were killed. Tel Aviv raised the bet a day, which struck the Syrian Ministry of Defense building in the center of Damascus in broad daylight – a clear warning to the Syrian leadership and the Syrian leadership.
Lester said: “Israel wanted to challenge the authority of the new state and maintain its ability to exercise influence on Syria by preserving chaos in the south, allowing them to continue to benefit from Damascus.”
Leicester added that Israel is also home to a large minority and political significance politically, which add government calls to intervene in favor of its citizens in Syria to some extent to the accounts of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the wake of the air strikes, the Syrian government moved to the Israeli and Druze demands, and its forces withdrew from Suwaidada in late July 16. While they withdrew, Druze militias rose forward, with their revenge for their first opponents in the conflict: the Bedouins.
Sami Akil, an unpopular colleague at the purification institute in Washington, DC, says that the deadly clashes in the southern Soyua province in Syria are that the new regime is unable to protect all Syrians, including its minorities. Dozens died after Syrian government officials tried to intervene in the wake of the attacks between local Bedouin fighters and the militias linked to the Druze minority during the past week, prompting Israeli air strikes in Damascus on Wednesday.
Druze revenge and a ceasefire
Jamil Abu Sakki, a local man, told CBC News that the Druze militia had burned homes and killed civilians.
Abu Saker said: “We believed for several days, besieging us in our villages, but it has worsened after he left the (Syrian) army.”
“The Druze Hakkatit Stone militia was the most brutal. His men came through our villages on an agitator, looting, burning houses, killing those who wanted.”
Abu Sakher himself is now one of the approximately 150,000 people who were displaced from Sooida as a result of the last fighting, according to numbers from the United Nations Humanitarian Agency Oshha. He said that all his family could not escape.
Abu Sakkur said: “Two of my cousins, Mahdi and Emran, were sparing of their sheep.” “They were not armed. The Hijri men shot them anyway, then they took their livestock. May God curse them.”
Druze retaliation caused the situation completely out of control, as Bedouin tribal fighters were mobilized 50,000 or more across Syria and went to Sweden to support their brothers. The shooting was stopped on July 20 at the end of last week, as it ended the clashes with the withdrawal of both BDPs and government forces from Soyida.
The effects of the region
With the stability of dust in the last round of the fighting, the size of sectarian killings on each side and the role of Israel gave the effects of the incident on the future of Syria itself.
Leicester said: “The intervention of Israel undoubtedly created this type of zero mentality from all sides.” Leicester added that the air campaign and the mobilization that followed, led the Druze and Bedouins to see the fighting in terms of “existential” terms.
Among the Druze, one of the massacre appeared above all: Hikmat Al-Hijri, the Sheikh-backed by Israel who was the most extremist opponent in any reintegration from Suwayda in the Central Syrian state.
“Al -Hijri is not just a national hero (for the Druze), he is a practical god here now.” “No one can ask him now.”
For her and other Druze, it will be very difficult to accept anything that Damascus offers after they suffered from it.
“We all have the hopes of this government,” said women. She said: “We thought that what happened on the coast, the killings of the ALISES, was just because Assad was Araweit,” referring to the incidents in March, when the militants loyal to the new government took revenge on the killings against the Assad sect.
“But now, after they came here and our pen, we see that we are not safe from them either.”
With the presence of the Israeli Air Force in the equation, Suwayda seems clear will remain outside government control in the foreseeable future.
“Sweden is likely to remain in this type of semi -independent situation for some time,” Leicester said.
“But the current situation is not sustainable. Without long negotiations to know an acceptable solution, this will only lead to another rise in fighting at some point.”
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