News Analysis: Syria’s sectarian clashes, Israeli airstrikes and a wary peace: What to know

Beirut – More than a week in Syria, bloodshed, Israel, Syria’s new officials in an unprecedented conflict with a fight, while these leaders could not pass the fractures of the 14 -year civil war has led to a fight that asks new questions.

The struggle in Sweida, the southern state near Jordan and Israel, began last week between the militias of Drze religious minority and Sunni Muslim tribes. Soon after a short time, the Syrian government forces and Israel had been killed in a chaotic war area-in a chaotic warfare-fueled revenge attacks-and a US ceasefire prevented more than 128,000 people from being displaced before being announced on Sunday.

Violence, the armed group underlines the difficulties faced by the President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a rebellious politician who pioneered the post of Syrian Dictorial Bashar al-Assad in December. Since then, the Islamist judge of Al-Sharaa has fought to gain the trust of the minority communities in the country and could not convince the militias established during the civil war to disarm or disarm the authority of Damascus.

Here he believes what is happening in Sweida and why many can cause Syria’s post -war sensitive healing.

How did the conflicts begin?

Before the explosion on July 13, the tensions between Sweida and nearby Bedouin tribes were already high after a series of kidnapping and robbery.

As the unrest turned into open conflicts containing Duze militias and armed Bedouins, the government sent its forces to stop the war. However, some Draze leaders said the government helped Bedouin instead; They also accused the state -compatible security personnel of making sectarian attacks against DRUze civilians of making and looting and execution.

Draze militias launched a counter -attack and retaliated with a murder and kidnapping wave against Bedouin fighters and civilians. Israel entered Syria’s security forces and tanks with an air strike campaign, as well as with the army headquarters and the Presidential Palace in Damascus, the capital Damascus.

Violence roughly 1,260 died, most Druse According to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, a UK -based monitoring group, warriors and civilians. He also said that the government forces were carrying out summary executions. Hundreds of government security personnel are included in the death fee.

Who are DRUZE?

Draze, which is roughly 3% of the Syrian population, is members of a synkeetic religion that emerged as a branch of Shiite Islam in the 11th century. Approximately 1 million droutes worldwide, more than half in Syria and the rest of the rest of the Lebanon, Israel and Golan Hills, which Israel has illegally occupied by international law since 1967.

During the civil war, Draze was greatly reluctant to Assad and Allly, but some of them were careful against the opposition of the challenging Sunni Islamist groups, some of them, who saw Draze as a disbeliever. Drze created militias for protection.

When Assad fell, many droutes were celebrated. However, some spiritual and militia leaders-like the other minority communities of the ulis-were suspected of Al-Sharaa and Islamist past, which included a relationship with the terrorist network al-Qaeda. They resisted their calls for disarmament and insisted that they would only strengthen a representative government.

The waves of sectarian attacks only strengthened the suspicions of Al-Sharaa: in March, the groups affiliated to the state massacred about 1,500 people from the Alevid sect, and in May, the conflicts in the Drze-Majority regions near the capital were killed.

How did Israel involved?

Israel has settled in the neighboring country since the fall of Assad, and even though warplanes, Israeli tanks and troops have been involved in Syria and commanded the villages near the border, it launched a wide attack to destroy the ammunition of the Syrian army.

Since then, he has reinforced his existence and operated even more in -depth in the Syrian region, justified his movements as necessary for security, and the government has been compatible or otherwise attacking Israel from Syrian territory.

Israel also applied a malicious region against Southern Syria, including Sweida, prevented the Syrian army from establishing its authority on the region.

Critics say that Israel has entered a land aimed at keeping Syria a weak and fragmented neighbor.

Another reason for Israel’s intervention is the vocal minority of approximately 145,000 people who work in the Israeli army. In the last few months, Israeli troops offered aid to the Syrian Duze communities. And when the Sweida fight began, Israel exhibited citizens near the border and called for the Israeli army to protect the Drze friends in Syria.

In spite of this, many Syria Drazy feared the increasing existence of Israel in its regions and sought a diplomatic solution to their differences with the Syrian government. Others, such as Hikmat Al-Hijri, an effective droute against Al-Sharaa, have repeatedly called on foreign protection.

What’s going on for the ceasefire?

Hours after the ceasefire came into force late on Sunday, the Syrian government evacuated approximately 1,500 Bedouin family members trapped in Sweida. Drze civilians would be evacuated later. Other stages of the ceasefire will see that the Bedouin fighters who were detained and the bodies killed in the fight were released.

Does the US play a role?

It was about the USA through the ceasefire. More generally, Trump management officials threw their support behind Al-Sharaa, and lifted annual sanctions that strangled the country’s economy and caught the diplomatic contacts with Israel.

Speaking to journalists in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, Tom Barrack, the Syrian ambassador, said that Syrian authorities should be held responsible for violations, but they should give them their responsibility ”.

Previously, in an interview with the Associated Press, he destroyed the murders, but the Syrian government said, “He said that he was in the best way. [it] It can be as a new government with very few sources to address the abundance of problems that arise when trying to bring together a different society. “

He also claimed that Israel was not interested in seeing a strong Syria.

“Strong nation -states are a threat. Especially the Arab states are seen as a threat to Israel,” he said. However, in Syria, “I think all the minority communities are smart enough to say, ‘We are better together, we centralized’.