ISIS execution of Druze woman enrages vulnerable minority

In a gruesome video posted on social media, two ISIS fighters, their faces covered, prepare to shoot a 25-year-old woman in the back of the head as she kneels in front of them.

The camera pans away to a blank wall as the shots are heard, a few seconds after one of the men ends his speech.

“If the campaign against our brothers in the region of Al Safa doesn’t end, and our Muslim brothers are not freed from prison in the next three days,” he shouts, then the rest of their hostages will share “the same fate as this apostate Druze woman”.

Tharwat Abu Ammar was kidnapped on July 25 with 29 other people from her village in the predominantly Druze region of Sweida in southern Syria. Nearly 250 people died during the attacks led by ISIS that day.

Her October 1 execution came after the beheading of the only male member of the group in early August. Muhannad Abu Ammar, 19, an engineering student, had been seized with his mother.

Like many other religious minorities, the Druze are vilified by ISIS.

In August, the Syrian army launched a large offensive against the extremist group in the region, particularly around the volcanic and barren area of Al Safa, east of Sweida.

But the hostages are believed to be held in the town of Hajin, one of ISIS’s last pockets near the Iraqi border, Nour Radwan, the head of local news website Sweida 24, told The National.

Pictures of Tharwat’s body, covered in blood, circulated widely on social media, angering people in Sweida, who are still reeling from the shock of the July attacks. Yesterday, residents took to the streets, firing guns in the air.

On the same day, a committee headed by religious Druze figures that was set up to negotiate the hostages’ release resigned, apologising for failing in its mission.

In a statement, it accused ISIS of not making its demands clear.

“The committee resigned one hour before the video of the [latest] execution was sent out in order to avoid taking responsibility,” Mr Radwan said.

Residents continued expressing their anger yesterday, fearing that ISIS would follow up on its pledge of executing the rest of its captives in the next few days.

Sweida 24 published a video showing a woman screaming in front of the Sweida governorate’s building as protesters blocked its entrance.

“There is great tension in the streets,” resident Kinan Al Yassin told The National.

“Small groups of people are blocking roads.”

The climate of distrust and fear has been exacerbated by the recent release of Bedouin women captured by local militias as a “gesture of goodwill”, Mr Al Yassin said.

Their husbands were suspected of collaborating with ISIS. Mr Radwan, however, argues that the Bedouin women were innocent.

Some think that the Druze community is being punished for staying neutral in the Syrian conflict and not sending its young men to the army.

All Syrian men between the ages of 18 and 42 across the country are subject to conscription.

In a detailed report published early last month, The Daily Beast quoted a Druze leader as saying: “We think there is complicity between Daesh and the regime.”

“Some activists believe what is happening in Sweida has been orchestrated to force young people to serve in the army,” Mr Radwan said.

“But there is no proof of this on the ground.”

The fate of the remaining women and children in captivity looks grim.

“I don’t think [ISIS] is interested in negotiating,” Mr Al Yassin said.

“They just want to create dissent between the Druze and the Bedouins in order to embarrass the Russians,” who are allied with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al Assad and are negotiating to release the hostages.

“I think these provocative executions will continue,” he said.