Syria’s Islamist-led government struggled to implement a ceasefire in the predominantly Druze region of Sweida on Saturday, with machine gun fire and mortar shelling ringing out after days of bloodshed.
Reuters reporters heard gunfire from inside the city of Sweida and saw shells land in nearby villages. There were no immediate, confirmed reports of casualties.
The government earlier said its security forces were deploying in the southern region and urged all parties to respect the ceasefire after nearly a week of factional bloodshed in which hundreds have been killed.
Interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa said in a speech that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm, and criticised Israel for air strikes against Syrian forces and Damascus during the week.
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The fighting is the latest challenge to the control of the Islamist-dominated government in Damascus, which came to power after rebels toppled autocratic president Bashar al-Assad in December.
It has involved clashes between the Druze – a religious minority native to southern Syria, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and parts of Lebanon and Jordan – and Syrian Bedouin tribes. It has led to clashes between government forces and Druze gunmen and attacks on the Druze community by government forces.
The fighting has drawn in neighbouring Israel, which carried out air strikes in southern Syria and on the defence ministry in Damascus this week. Israel says it is protecting the Druze, who also form a significant minority in Israel.
But Israel is at odds with Washington. The US supports a centralised Syria under Sharaa’s government, which has pledged to rule for all citizens, while Israel says the government is dominated by jihadists and a danger to minorities.
In March, Syria’s military was involved in mass killings of members of the Alawite minority, which much of Assad’s elite belonged to. It also clashed with Druze gunmen in May.
The fighting in Sweida province began with clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions before government security forces were sent in.
In a statement on Saturday, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to end hostilities immediately. The interior ministry said internal security forces had begun deploying.
Sharaa called for calm and said Syria would not be a “testing ground for partition, secession or sectarian incitement”.
“The Israeli intervention pushed the country into a dangerous phase that threatened its stability,” he said in a televised speech.
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar accused him of siding with the perpetrators.
“In al-Shara’s Syria, it is very dangerous to be a member of a minority – Kurd, Druze, Alawite, or Christian,” he posted on X. “This has been proven time and again over the past six months.”
Mansour Namour, a resident of a village near Sweida city, said mortar shells were still landing near his home on Saturday afternoon, and that at least 22 people had been wounded.
A doctor in Sweida said a local hospital was full of bodies and wounded people from days of violence.
“All the injuries are from bombs, some people with their chests wounded. There are also injuries to limbs from shrapnel,” said Omar Obeid, director of the hospital.
US envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire.
Barrack, who is both US ambassador to Turkey and Washington’s Syria envoy, urged Druze, Bedouin and Sunnis, together with other minorities, to “build a new and united Syrian identity”. Israel has attacked Syrian military facilities and weaponry in the seven months since Assad fell, and says it wants areas of southern Syria near its border to remain demilitarised.
On Friday, an Israeli official said Israel had agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area for the next two days. – Reuters
