Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has accused “illegal armed groups“ of violating the ceasefire in the southern province of Sweida, SANA reported.
“On July 16, the country's leadership decided to withdraw troops from Sweida, as it was given guarantees that the illegal armed groups would not attack civilians. However, after the withdrawal of the Syrian military, these groups committed horrific crimes against the civilian population, which is a clear violation of the agreements reached,“ the statement said.
Al-Sharaa added that he called on “all parties to remain calm and exercise restraint“ and promised to “bring to justice all those involved in committing crimes, regardless of their ethnicity“. He also warned the Israeli leadership not to interfere in Syria's internal affairs, stressing that the Jewish state's actions “only worsen and complicate the situation in the region“.
On July 17, SANA said that illegal armed groups had carried out massacres of Arab Bedouin militias in the Syrian city of Suwayda after government troops left it. The newspaper “Al Watan“ claimed that the unrest in Suwayda was the work of supporters of the radical Druze Sheikh Hikmet al-Hajari, who advocates rapprochement with Israel and calls for disobedience to the authorities in Damascus.
The situation in southern Syria escalated on July 13, when clashes broke out between Arab tribal militias Druze self-defense units in the province of Suwayda, where they are the majority.
On July 15, the Syrian army entered the provincial capital of the same name and began clearing it in order to stabilize the situation. Soon after, Israel began attacking military convoys of the Syrian armed forces, citing a desire to protect the Druze population of the province, and on July 16, it shelled several strategic sites in the Syrian capital.
On the evening of July 16, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced the withdrawal of all military forces from the city of Suwayda in accordance with the ceasefire agreement. As stated in the statement, “the troops will leave As-Suwayda after completing the clearing of the city from illegal groups, and the police forces will exercise control over it“. The spiritual leader of the Druze, Sheikh Youssef Jarboua, unlike Hikmet al-Hajari, welcomed the agreement for a complete cessation of hostilities.
The Druze are a distinct Arabic-speaking ethno-confessional group whose representatives live in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. There are 700,000 Druze in Syria, making them the third largest religious and ethnic minority after the Kurds and the Alawites.