Some Druze in Syria begin to take up arms, as sectarian violence hits home
Hundreds of armed Druze men are seen setting up positions to defend their towns after dozens killed in attacks near Damascus by Islamists loyal to new government
JARAMANA, Syria — Syrian estate agent Fahd Haidar shuttered his business and got out his rifle to defend his hometown of Jaramana when it came under attack this week by Islamists loyal to the new government.
Seven Druze fighters were among the 17 people killed in the Damascus suburb as clashes raged from Monday into Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The clashes were sparked by a purported recording of a Druze man cursing the Prophet Mohammad that angered Sunni gunmen, rescuers and security sources said.
On Wednesday, the sectarian violence spread to the nearby town of Sahnaya, where 22 combatants were killed, the Britain-based war monitor said. (The Observatory has been accused of inflating death tolls in the past)
Fourteen years after former ruler Bashar al-Assad’s bloody suppression of pro-democracy protests triggered a devastating civil war, Haidar said he feared a return to “chaos,” a slide into a “quagmire of grievances that will affect every Syrian.”
He appealed to the new authorities, who took over after Assad’s ouster in December, to step back from the brink and find “radical solutions” to rein in “uncontrolled gangs” like those who attacked his mainly Druze and Christian hometown this week.
In Jaramana, Druze leaders reached a deal with government representatives on Tuesday evening to halt the fighting.
On Wednesday morning, an AFP correspondent saw hundreds of armed Druze, some of them just boys, deployed across the town.
‘War footing’
Druze fighters handed out weapons and ammunition behind mounds of earth piled up as improvised defenses.
“For the past two days, the people of Jaramana have been on a war footing,” said local activist Rabii Mondher.
“Everybody is scared — of war… of coming under siege, of a new assault and new martyrs.”
Like many residents in the confessionally mixed town, Mondher said he hoped “peace will be restored… because we have no choice but to live together.”
Mounir Baaker lost his nephew Riadh in this week’s clashes.
“We don’t take an eye for an eye,” he said tearfully, as he received the condolences of friends and neighbors.
“Jaramana is not used to this,” he went on, holding up a photograph of his slain nephew, who was among a number of young Druze men from the town who signed up to join the new security forces after Assad’s ouster.
“We’re brought up to be tolerant, not to strike back and not to attack anyone, whoever they are,” he said. “But we defend ourselves if we are attacked.”
The fighting marked the latest episode of deadly sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minorities have been swelling since Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad from power in December, installing their own government and security forces.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military carried out a drone strike on an armed group preparing to attack a Druze community in Sahnaya, on the outskirts of Damascus, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz called a “warning.”
The strike targeted “a gathering of an extremist group that was preparing to continue its attack on the Druze population” in Syria, said the premier and defense minister.
In a separate statement, the Israel Defense Forces said the drone strike targeted operatives “after they had attacked Druze civilians.”
Later Wednesday, three Syrian Druze civilians, who were apparently wounded in the sectarian violence, were evacuated by the Israeli military to a hospital in Israel.
The IDF said the three arrived at the Israeli border and were initially taken to the Nafah base in the Golan Heights. They were then taken to Ziv Hospital in Safed for treatment.
“Israel will not allow harm to the Druze community in Syria, out of a deep commitment to our Druze brothers in Israel,” Netanyahu and Katz said, “who are connected by family and historical ties to their Druze brothers in Syria.”
The Druze, who number around 140,000 in Israel, are an Arabic-speaking minority population distinct from the mainstream Muslim and Christian Arabic communities.
The Times of Israel Community.