The fatal clashes fueled by sectarian tensions broke out on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 12 people, Syrian officials and a war monitoring group said Tuesday.
The fighting began during the night from Monday to Tuesday in the suburb of Damascus of Jaramana, which has a large population of the sect of minority druse. He arrived after an audio clip circulated on social media of a man who insulted the prophet Muhammad. The clip was attributed to a cleric Druse.
The cleric and the religious figures of Druse in Jaramana denied the accusation. The Syrian Interior Ministry said that its initial results showed that the cleric was not responsible and appealed to calm.
As the public anger for the clip grew, the unidentified fighters in armored vehicles accumulated during the night outside Jaramana and began to bomb the city, unleashing heavy battles of firearms, according to the Syrian observatory for human rights, a war monitoring group based in Great Britain.
It has been the last wave of sectarian violence to hit Syria since the Islamist rebels overturned the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, feeding the fears among the many minority groups of the country that those rebels-things now control the government and the military-thes will marginalize or even hit.
The audio clip has also highlighted demonstrations in several other cities, with some demonstrators who incite violence against druse, according to the Observatory.
The Observatory did not say who was behind the attack on Jaramana, who also wounded 15 people. But the religious authorities of local druses in the city declared in a declaration of considering the government “fully responsible for what happened and any worsening of the situation”.
The spiritual leader of the Syrian community of Druse, Hikmat Al-Hijri, accused the Islamist extremists of being behind the attacks. AL-HIJRI is a vocal critic of the new rebel leadership of the country.
While the day broke on Tuesday, the Syrian security forces sided on the outskirts of Jaramana and put a security cordon in the area to prevent further clashes, said the Ministry of the Interior, adding that the members of the government's security forces were among the victims of the clashes.
Syrian officials subsequently met religious figures of druses and leaders of the Jaramana community. They agreed to consider the people involved in the attack, according to the Syrian state press agency responsible.
It was not the first time that the area saw sectarian violence in recent months. Mortal fights also broke out in Jaramana in early March, when Druse fought battles with weapons with the security forces of the new government.
Syria is a mainly Sunni Muslim nation, while druse practices a secret religion and is not considered Muslims. The rebels who led the reversal of Mr. Al-Assad belonged to a Sunni Islamist group who was once linked to Al Qaeda.
The new leaders of the country have fought to integrate the complex network of armed groups operating across the country in the new state apparatus. Many of the strongest druse militias are in negotiations with the government on their conditions for integration into the new army.
Syria has already seen a serious wave of sectarian guided killings. The accidents occurred last month in two coastal provinces that have large populations of Alawiti, the minority group to which the Assad family belongs. The area once formed the heart of the support base of Mr. Al-Assad.
Violence began with Assad's loyalists who launched a coordinated attack on the forces of the new government in the coastal region. Thousands of pro-government armed men therefore stormed the two provinces and killed over 1,600 civilians, mainly Alawiti, in a few days, according to the Observatory.
Violence underlined the difficulty that the new leaders of Syria are facing in checking the various armed groups and the former rebels who have nominically joined the government.
“There is a real fear among the citizens and residents of the city that the situation can slide into a dangerous spiral, repeating the dark experience of the coastal region,” said Rabee Mounzer, leader of the Jaramana Druse community.