The New Syrian Regime Is in a Quandary Over the Druze

The IDF has carried out what it calls a “warning airstrike” against a Sunni group that was threatening Druze in villages just south of Damascus, stopping them in their tracks. More on this can be found here.

In a statement on state news agency SANA, the director of security for the Damascus countryside said a ceasefire was reached in Jaramana but outlaws had escalated attacks in the Sahnaya area on Wednesday, killing 16 members of the security forces.

Those this director of security called “outlaws” were Druze who were simply defending their village of Sahnaya from attacks by the Sunni security forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports on conflict in Syria, said at least 22 people were killed in Sahnaya – six Druze fighters and 16 members of government security forces or fighters aligned with them.

The Interior Ministry has said it is investigating the origin of the audio recording.

This is the fake audio recording that was purportedly made by a senior Druze cleric, but the voice was not his. It was produced so as to whip up anti-Druze sentiment among the local Sunnis. The fighting started in the Druze village of Jaramana, after Sunnis marched in and faced Druze militiamen. Once that battle was over, with equal losses on both sides, Sunnis marched on another Druze village, Sahnaya, where even more people died — six Druze, and 16 members of the government security services. Just as the Sunnis were about to launch another attack on the Druze, the IDF launched a drone to fire on them, thereby stopping the Sunnis in their tracks.

Residents of Sahnaya reported intense street fighting throughout Wednesday. “We’re in extreme panic and fear because of the indiscriminate shelling, which is forcing most of us to stay totally shuttered inside our homes,” said Elias Hanna, who lives on the edge of Sahnaya.

“We’re worried that the massacres of the coast will repeat themselves near Sahnaya against the Druze,” he said.

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Elias Hanna and his fellow Druze in Sahnaya have good reason to fear. He knows that Sunnis killed more than a thousand Alawite civilians — some Alawites report that the real number of Alawites who were killed in Latakia — in the tens of thousands.

Geir Pedersen, UN special envoy to Syria, is “deeply concerned” by violence in the country, especially in suburbs of the capital Damascus and in Homs,” the United Nations said.

He called for immediate measures to ensure the protection of civilians, and prevent incitement of communal tensions.

In his mealy-mouthed every-side-is-equally-guilty UN way, Geir Pedersen calls for civilians to be protected, but fails to note that all the civilians involved so far have been Druze; the Sunnis who arrived at their villages were members of the security services. He also calls for an end to “incitement,” but fails to note that the only “incitement” was that created by the faked audio recording made by Sunnis, but attributed to a Druze cleric, in which a voice is heard denouncing Muhammad. Pedersen doesn’t dare note that “armed Sunni members of the security services attacked Druze civilians in Jaramana and Sahnaya,” or that “the violence was prompted by Sunnis angry about a audio recording in which a Druze cleric was claimed to have calumniated Muhammad; the recording was a fake, the voice was not that of the cleric but most likely, of Sunnis intent on stirring up trouble.”

Five days after Bashar Assad fell, six Druze villages asked to be annexed by Israel, so fearful were they of what the new Sunni regime, headed by someone — Ahmed al-Sharaa — who was a member of Al-Qaeda as recently as 2016, might do to them. One village, Hadara, actually took a vote of everyone in the village; they voted overwhelmingly for annexation by Israel.

Now the Syrian regime is in a quandary. The Sunni security services’ unprovoked attack on the Druze in the villages of Jaramana and Sahnaya to terrorize them into submission to the edicts from Damascus, including the demand that the Druze militias disband and their members become part of the Syrian national army — has only drawn the Druze closer to Israel.

Every attempt by Damascus to frighten the Druze into submission has had the effect of making the Druze ever more certain that their survival can be assured only by Israel. If the regime in Damascus cannot rein in the Sunnis now frightening the Druze in the south, it is likely to see a loss of territory, as a half-dozen Druze villages, and possibly more, not only ask Israel to annex them, but have their request granted.