Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa yesterday accused Israel of trying to fracture Syria and promised to protect its Druze minority, after a US intervention helped end deadly fighting between government forces and Druze fighters in the south.
Overnight, the Islamist-led government’s troops withdrew from the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, where scores of people have been killed in days of conflict.
One local journalist said he had counted more than 60 bodies in the streets of Sweida yesterday morning.
Photo: AP
Ryan Marouf of Suwayda24 said he had found a family of 12 people killed in one house, including women and an elderly man.
“People are looking for bodies,” he said in a voice recording.
Violence in Syria escalated sharply on Wednesday as Israel launched airstrikes in Damascus, while also hitting government forces in the south, demanding they withdraw and saying Israel aimed to protect Syrian Druze — part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
Israel, which bombed Syria frequently under the rule of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, has struck the country repeatedly this year, describing its new leaders as barely disguised terrorists and saying it would not allow them to deploy forces in areas of southern Syria near its border.
Addressing Syrians yesterday, al-Sharaa accused Israel of seeking to “dismantle the unity of our people,” saying it had “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime.”
Al-Sharaa, who was commander of an al-Qaeda faction before cutting ties with the group in 2016, said that protecting Druze citizens and their rights was “our priority” and rejected any attempt to drag them into the hands of an “external party.”
He also vowed to hold to account those who committed violations against “our Druze people.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights said it had documented 193 dead in four days of fighting, among them medical personnel, women and children.
Network head Fadel Abdulghany said the figure included cases of field executions by both sides, Syrians killed by Israeli strikes and others killed in clashes, but that it would take time to break down the figures for each category.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio late on Wednesday said that the US had engaged all the parties involved and that steps had been agreed that would end “this troubling and horrifying situation.”
Al-Sharaa credited US, Arab and Turkish mediation for saving “the region from an uncertain fate.”
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