DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Syria’s Islamist-led government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire after days of factional bloodshed in which hundreds have been killed.
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa in a separate speech said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm, and criticised Israel for airstrikes against Syrian government forces in the south and Damascus during the week.
However, the ceasefire looked fragile.
One resident said gunfire could be heard from inside Sweida early on Saturday. Video footage verified by Reuters showed government forces on the streets and smoke billowing across roads as the sound of gunfire rang out in the background.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the source of the gunfire.
VIOLENCE IN DRUZE REGION CHALLENGES DAMASCUS
The violence around Sweida 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 drawn in neighbouring Israel, which carried out airstrikes in southern Syria and on the defence ministry in Damascus this week. Israel says it is protecting the Druze minority, of whom there are a significant number in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
But Israel is at odds with Washington. The United States 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 the mass killings of members of the Alawite minority, which much of Assad’s elite belonged to. It has also clashed with Druze gunmen in May.
Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence, which 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 in Sweida.
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 Israel Katz slammed the speech as 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.”
SWEIDA HOSPITAL FILLS WITH CASUALTIES
A doctor in Sweida said shelling had stopped but a local hospital was full of bodies and wounded people.
“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.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and neighbours.
Barrack, who is both U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Washington’s Syria envoy, urged Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons “and together with other minorities 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.
(Reporting by Maya Gebaily, Laila Bassam, Menna Alaa El-Din and Muhammad Al-Gebaly in Cairo; Writing by Tom Perry and John Davison; Editing by Barbara Lewis, Aidan Lewis and Kevin Liffey)
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