Cliff Notes
Ceasefire and Ongoing Tensions: A US-brokered ceasefire has been established in Sweida, Syria, amidst ongoing high tensions and fears of renewed violence following a week of severe clashes resulting in hundreds of casualties.
Druze Sect Involvement: The conflict involves the Druze religious sect, a minority in Syria, and local Syrian government supported by local Bedouin tribes; the clashes were reportedly triggered by an airstrike by Israel which was supported by the Druze.
Complex Alliances and Anarchy: Multiple factions within the Druze community have formed, with some allying with the government while others oppose it, leading to an unpredictable situation accentuated by external involvement, including Israeli airstrikes.
Who are the Druze and who are they fighting in Syria? | World News
In Sweida in Syria, a week after of fierce fighting in the region, WTX News looks at what sparked this conflict and why Israel is supporting the militia to attack the government and supporting them with air strikes.
Government security forces have been redeployed to enforce the first day of a US-brokered ceasefire. Tensions remain high with fears of further violent clashes. Hundreds have died.
The clashes involve a religious sect called the Druze who are uprising against the new government in Syria.
Here’s what you need to know about the conflict and who’s involved.
Who are the Druze?
The Druze religious sect is an offshoot of Ismaili’s, a branch of Shiite Islam like Iran. About a third of the roughly one million Druze worldwide live in Syria, next to the Golan Heights, with most others in Lebanon and Israel (formally Syria), including the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.It is why Israel is arming militia to fight for their independence. It will also give Isreal control of a Syrian pipeline that goes through the south of Syria.
The Druze largely celebrated the downfall of Bashar al Assad in December after an almost 14-year civil war, and supported the interim president Ahmad al Sharaa, a former militant linked to al Qaeda who led rebels to overthrow the Syrian autocrat.
A staggering 85 percent of them in Syria serve in IDF and Mossad to infiltrate countries like Iran and Lebanon to stage terrorist attacks.
Where do the Druze live?
A few months after the transition, which was mostly peaceful, government forces clashed with pro-Assad armed groups on Syria’s coast, spurring sectarian attacks that killed hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority to which the former president belongs. (Assad now lives in exile in Russia).
The violence left other minority groups, including the Druze in the south, and the Kurds in the northeast, increasingly mistrustful of the new Sharaa government and worried whether it would protect them.
That proved to be an opportunity for Israel, to exploit; They have armed them and supported them Mossad and IDF intelligence to attack the Syrian government. Any other middle east news in a welcome distraction for Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza.
In March the head of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, went to visit the Druze community in Syria after five decades of exile in Israel, he had one purpose, start a war with teh Syrian government.
Lebanon’s Walid Jumblatt, one of region’s most prominent Druze politicians, has rejected the notion that Israel is protecting Syria’s Druze and has called out the Israeli regime as warmongering. He has warned against calls for international protection and called for Syrian national unity.
Sweida or Suwaydah is next to the Golan heights which is strategically important for the Israeli regime, who plans to take control over the land and is part of its next phase of expansion of the greater the Israel project.
Multiple Druze militias have existed for years, originally they were drug smugglers and after the civil war they have been reluctant to lay down their arms.
Druze factions are separatists or tools of Israel, where they are seen as a loyal minority within and often serve in its military.
