In an attempt to halt over a week of sectarian fighting in the southern Druze city of Sweida, the Syrian president has declared that it is forming a special team.
The president said it is working hard to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society” and urged everyone to exercise patience.
By early Saturday am, US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack verified a truce, posting on X that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had backed the ceasefire agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria’s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
After a day of nearly constant violent battles and fatalities, thousands of people had traveled from various parts of Syria and arrived at the outskirts of Sweida city by Friday nightfall.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” we were told.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
In the streets leading up to Sweida city, every store and house has been plundered or torched, and the contents have been destroyed.
We observed tribal warriors packing pickup trucks with plundered stuff from Druze homes and leaving the city in their cars.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Violence against the Druze was depicted in a number of YouTube films, one of which showed tribal fighters forcing three men to jump over a high-rise balcony while they are being shot.
There has been a steady flow of wounded being brought in, according to doctors at the local community hospital in Buser al Harir. Another dead warrior was being brought out of an ambulance as we watched.
In their area alone, the medics calculated that almost 600 people had died. According to one doctor, “the youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby.”
Physicians reported a steady flow of victims as a result of the violence.
The bloodshed is the most significant challenge facing the new government and the most deadly wave of sectarian conflicts since the overthrow of the Bashar al Assad regime in December of last year.
Ending sectarian massacres and bringing some peace to a nation recovering from almost ten years of civil conflict are the goals of the recently mediated agreement.
