The budget of the victims of the outbreak of this week of sectarian violence in Syria has exceeded 100, said a war monitoring group on Thursday, after the clashes between pro-government forces and militants of the Syrian minority Druse have spread to new areas.
But Thursday evening, the government representatives had brought agreements with the leaders of Druse in an attempt to calm violence. The move also seemed to be a step towards achieving the objective of the new government to integrate the complex network of armed groups that operated across the country in a national military. The leaders of the Sweida region controlled by druses, previously reluctant to join the government forces, expressed opening to do so.
The unrest began on Tuesday after an audio clip circulated on social media that demanded to be a drusian chicire that insults the prophet Muhammad. The cleric denied the accusation and the Ministry of the Interior of Syria said she was not involved.
However, the armed Sunnite Muslim extremist groups began to attack areas with large populations of druses, including the city of Jaramana near the capital, Damascus. Druse Militias replied in force and the government sent forces to repress the unrest.
On Wednesday, the clashes spread to another city on the southern suburbs of Damascus, Ashrafieh Sahnaya and Sweida, where they continued until Thursday morning.
Five important leaders of Druse have released a declaration on Thursday evening stating that the staff of the Ministry of the Interior and the judicial police “taken from the people” of Sweida “must be activated”, indicating the desire to unite the forces with the government.
They also said that the government forces were deploying to secure the way from Sweida to the capital, where clashes occurred on Wednesday. The government also agreed to send reinforcements to protect Jaramana, Druse leaders said.
Jibran, a doctor who edited some of the wounded in Sweida, said that a delegation of leaders of Sweida druse was an ambush while they went to Ashrafieh Sahnaya on Wednesday morning by the Bedouin tribal fighters with mortars and machine guns.
Although the government's security forces came later to restore the order, the Bedouin tribes that night began to bomb a checkpoint of the Druse militia in the city of Kanaker, south -west of Sweida, instigating another battle during the night, said Jibran, who asked to be identified only with his name due to the remaining threat of violence. He said about 70 people had disappeared or were killed.
In a country where the minorities have already felt deeply vulnerable, the main outbreak of seventy violence of this week-the second since a rebellious coalition overturned President Bashar al-Assad and seized the power-he further exposed the fractures of Syria.
That coalition was led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, who was once linked to Al Qaeda, and included other Islamist armed groups with more extreme ideologies. Many of these groups have not dissolved in the new national soldiers and the new Syria authorities have shown little ability to reincaricate them.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in Great Britain, said that the financial statements of the victims of three days of clashes has risen to 101 by Thursday.
The Observatory reported for the first time Thursday that 35 druses had been killed on the road by connecting Sweida to Damascus and five Druse fighters in a village in Sweida.
Those killed in Ashrafieh Sahnaya on Wednesday included a former mayor of the area, Hassan Warwar, and his son, said the observatory.
The Observatory said that 20 from the government's security forces were also killed in disorders this week and 10 by allied groups.
Druse practices a religion that is a derivation of Islam. Israel, who has a close relationship with Israeli Druse, also entered the fray on Wednesday, launching air attacks against what characterized as “agents” who had attacked the Syrian civilians Druse.
Abu Hassan, a commander of Druse's militia in Sweida who passes from a nom -guerre, said thousands of fighters have fought in several points on Wednesday between Sweida and Daraa, another city in the South -ovest. He said that the Druse militants were fighting the Government's allied Bedouin militants, among others.
The governor of the area that includes Jaramana and Ashrafieh Sahnaya, Amr Al-Sheikh, has blamed “outlaw groups” for starting the initial violence in a press conference on Wednesday, but did not identify the groups. Al-Sheikh did not recognize the presence of pro-government armed factions, stating only that the official government forces had deployed to protect the two cities.
Other security officials, however, have recognized privately that the government is unable to control all the armed groups that support it.
“We have the right to keep our weapons to protect us from these random factions,” said Loubna Baset, Druse activist in Sweida.
The government “claims that they are sending all these military reinforcements to protect us, but we don't trust them,” he added.
Despite the sectarian battle lines, the general security forces of the government include druses and other minorities and fighters of the Sunni Muslim majority of the country. Druses were among the general security forces killed this week.
But despite the promises of inclusiveness by the government, the Syrian minorities remain at the limit, an anxiety that has been deepened after a wave of march of sectarian murders hit the coastal region of Syria, home of the Alawites of the country, the minority group to which the Assad family belongs.