SWEIDA: Syrian government forces have withdrawn from the whole of Sweida province after days of sectarian bloodshed in the heartland of the Druze minority, a war monitor and witnesses said Thursday.
The pullout came after Islamist interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in a televised address that “responsibility” for security in Sweida would be handed to religious elders and some local factions “based on the supreme national interest”.
“The Syrian authorities have withdrawn their military forces from the city of Sweida and the the whole province, and Druze fighters have deployed” in their place, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Government troops who had pulled out of the province told AFP that the order to withdraw came shortly before midnight (2100 GMT Wednesday) and they completed their pullout at dawn.
“The city of Sweida seems devoid of any government forces presence,” the editor in chief of the Suwayda 24 news website, Rayan Maarouf, told AFP.
Government forces had deployed to the city on Tuesday with the stated aim of overseeing a truce, following days of deadly clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes.
But witnesses said government forces had instead joined the Bedouin in attacking Druze fighters and civilians.
Neighbouring Israel responded with strikes on the Syrian military, including its headquarters in Damascus, which it warned would intensify until the Islamist-led government withdrew its forces from the south.
Israel, which is home to around 150,000 Druze citizens, has repeatedly stated its intention to defend the Druze of Syria in bouts of sectarian violence that have broken out since the Islamist now in power in Damascus toppled longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December.
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The Israeli military, which has taken control of the UN-monitored demilitarised zone on the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria, also says it will not allow any Syrian military presence on its border.
Despite having initiated contact, Israel remains extremely wary of Syria’s new rulers, including Sharaa whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement was once linked to Al-Qaeda.
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