Syria pulls troops from Druze heartland

DAMASCUS, Syria (AFP) — Syria announced that its army had begun to withdraw from violence-hit Sweida on Wednesday, following a wave of Israeli strikes on the capital and a United States (US) call for government forces to leave the majority-Druze southern city.

The US, which is close allies with Israel and has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria, said an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, and urged “all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made.”

The Syrian government earlier announced a new ceasefire in Sweida that would bring a halt to military operations there, after clashes that a war monitor said had left more than 350 people dead since Sunday.

The Syrian army “has begun withdrawing from the city of Sweida in implementation of the terms of the adopted agreement, after the end of the sweep of the city for outlaw groups,” a defense ministry statement said.

The statement did not mention any withdrawal of other government security forces, which had deployed to the city on Tuesday with the stated aim of overseeing a previous truce agreed with Druze community leaders following days of deadly fighting with local Bedouin tribes.

That ceasefire appeared to have little effect, however, with witnesses reporting that the government forces joined with the Bedouin in attacking Druze fighters and civilians in a bloody rampage through the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said that the violence in Sweida province had left more than 350 people dead, including government forces, local fighters and 27 Druze civilians killed in “summary executions.”

The Syrian presidency vowed to investigate the “heinous acts” in Sweida and to punish “all those proven to be involved.”

Damascus strikes

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has presented itself as a defender of the group, although some analysts say that is a pretext for pursuing its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces as far from their shared frontier as possible.

Following the fall of Syria’s longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, the Israeli military took control of the United Nations-monitored demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria.

After carrying out air strikes in Sweida province earlier this week in what it said was defense of the Druze, Israel launched a series of attacks on the capital Damascus on Wednesday.