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Syria government forces withdraw from majority-Druze city of Suwayda: Reports
Syrian government forces have withdrawn from areas they entered in recent days in Suwayda, the heartland of the Druze minority in southern Syria, Al Jazeera Arabic is reporting.
The pullout came after al-Sharaa announced in a televised address that “responsibility” for security in Suwayda would be handed to religious elders and some local factions “based on the supreme national interest”.
Syrian government forces leave Suwayda as ceasefire comes into effect
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa has spelled out what this new ceasefire deal is about, and it involves the state withdrawing from the border region.
We can confirm that we have seen government forces leave Suwayda for now. The responsibility for security will be handed over to the people of this region, which is populated by the Druze minority.
Al-Sharaa made a choice at this point in time, and it really has been Syria’s policy since he took over. Since the beginning, he has been saying that they are not ready for a confrontation with Israel as there are so many challenges that lie ahead.
People here have enjoyed some sort of autonomy, and security was in the hands of local forces. But the Druze are a divided community. There are some who are ready to work with Syrian authorities, and there are others who refuse a deal with the authorities, who they say are not a government but a group of armed gangs.
And that's exactly the wedge Israel is pushing in Syria.
Attacks in Suwayda created new ‘social fabric’ in Syria
Labib al-Nahhas, a political analyst, says a new social fracture has been created in Syria between not only the Druze community and the authorities, “but also within the Syrian social fabric”.
“Right now, it is impossible to have any government intervention in the Suwayda area. Beyond that, Israel and we have to emphasise that the genesis of what we have witnessed in the last few days is [Hikmat] al-Hijri, who is one of the spiritual leaders of [the] Druze and his secessionist approach to the issue and Israel on the other side,” al-Nahhas told Al Jazeera.
Despite those known factors, we have to emphasise there have been some crucial mistakes in the decision-making, in the timing and the execution of the intervention,” he said.
Al-Nahhas added that what happened in Suwayda sets a “precedent” for other secessionist movements in Syria.
