Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa says protecting the country’s Druze citizens and their rights is a priority as he announces that local leaders will take control of security in the city of Suwayda in a bid to end sectarian violence in the south and in the wake of deadly Israeli strikes in Damascus.
In a televised speech on Thursday, the Syrian leader addressed days of fierce fighting involving Druze armed groups, Bedouin tribes and government forces in the predominantly Druze city of Suwayda.
Israel, which sees the Druze as allies, launched a series of strikes near Syria’s presidential palace and on the military headquarters in the heart of Damascus on Wednesday, warning Syria it would escalate its attacks further if government forces did not withdraw from the south and halt attacks against the Druze community.
“We are eager on holding accountable those who transgressed and abused our Druze people because they are under the protection and responsibility of the state,” al-Sharaa said in the speech, describing the minority as “a fundamental part of the fabric of this nation”.
“We affirm that protecting your rights and freedoms is among our top priorities,” he said. “We reject any attempt, foreign or domestic, to sow division within our ranks.”
Al-Sharaa said “responsibility” for security in the violence-plagued area would be handed over to religious elders and some local factions “based on the supreme national interest”.
At least 169 people have been killed in the violence in southern Syria in recent days, local sources told Al Jazeera, while the United Kingdom-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 360 people have been killed.
Al-Sharaa’s remarks came after the Syrian government and Druze leader Sheikh Yousef Jarbou announced a new ceasefire in the city and said the army had begun withdrawing from Suwayda. Dozens of Syrian military vehicles were seen leaving the city overnight.
Reporting from Suwayda, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said “a tense calm” had settled on the city on Thursday morning. “Whether or not it will hold, we have to wait and see,” she said.
She said the Druze community, a small but influential minority in both Syria and Israel, was “divided” over its stance towards the new Syrian authorities, who took over after the fall of longtime President Bashar al-Assad in December.
Jarbou, who said he agreed to the ceasefire, condemned the Israeli strikes on Syria, telling Al Jazeera Arabic that “any attack on the Syrian state is an attack on the Druze community.”
But another influential Druze leader in the city, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, said he rejected the ceasefire and promised to continue fighting until Suwayda was “entirely liberated”. Khodr said al-Hajari’s whereabouts were unknown, and it was unclear whether fighters affiliated with him would “continue to put up a fight”. (Al Jazeera)
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