Rare clashes in Syria’s Sweida province leave 17 people dead
At least 17 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the Syrian province of Sweida in clashes between armed residents and gangs aligned with state security agencies, activists and local media said on Thursday.
The Druze-majority province has remained mostly shielded from the bloody conflict that ravaged the rest of the country since 2011 but sporadic rallies have taken place over deteriorating economic conditions. The Syrian government exerts less military and administrative control of the region than other government-held areas.
Residents have been growing increasingly frustrated at government-backed fighters carrying out arbitrary detentions, random roadblocks and kidnappings for ransom, said Rayan Maarouf, an activist and head of the Suwayda24 local media outlet.
At the weekend, the detention of one resident prompted others to set up informal roadblocks and detain members of government-backed gangs and besiege their bases, Suwayda24 reported.
“This uprising flared up very suddenly and there were attacks on the bases of these armed
The Druze-majority province has remained mostly shielded from the bloody conflict that ravaged the rest of the country since 2011; dozens of bodies found in Syria’s mass grave: Officials
groups, which are reinforced with heavy weapons,” Maarouf told reporters late on Wednesday.
One resident of Atil, one of the villages swallowed up by fighting, said the clashes were so heavy he was unable to leave his house to get urgent medical supplies for his sister.
“It was 15 hours of full-on war. The cars, the solar panels, the water tanks — they all got destroyed,” said the resident, who preferred to use his first name Shadi.
The resulting fighting left 17 people dead according to Sweida’s health directorate, which was cited by both Suwayda24 and the pro-government Al Watan newspaper on Thursday.
Most of the dead were members of the statealigned gangs and muted funerals were held for them on Thursday, Maarouf said.
The rest, from a movement linked to Druze religious figures and known as the “Men of Dignity,” were mourned in two processions that drew in around 2,000 people each, he added.
The Syrian government has not commented on the violence but Al Watan said the fighting had quietened and negotiations over a settlement were underway. The man kidnapped at the weekend was ultimately released, Sweida24 reported.
Sweida had seen rare protests earlier this year, when dozens gathered in the provincial capital to demand a halt to cuts in gas subsidies.
Meanwhile, Kurdish-affiliated authorities said they had found the remains of almost 30 bodies in a mass grave in northern Syria, with a war monitor saying they were likely killed by militants.
“At least 29 bodies, including those of a woman and two children, have been found in a mass grave,” near a hotel in Manbij, said an official of the Kurdish-affiliated Manbij civilian council, who requested anonymity.
The Daesh group had turned the hotel in a prison when it ruled the northern city between 2014 and 2016.
The mass grave was unearthed on Wednesday by municipal workers who were doing work on the sewerage system, according to the Manbij military council.
Some of the decomposed remains were found handcuffed and blindfolded, it said.
The military council said it was unclear when they were killed, but that it was during Daesh rule of Manbij.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the remains are believed to belong to people abducted by Daesh fighters.
Us-backed Kurdish-led forces took control of Manbij in 2016, after ousting the militants from the city.
Dozens of mass graves have been found in Iraq and Syria but the identification process is slow, costly and complicated.
Daesh seized large swathes of Iraq and Syrian territory in 2014, declaring a “caliphate” and killing thousands before they were detained.
One of the biggest alleged Daesh mass graves contained 200 bodies and was discovered in 2019 near Raqa, the group’s former de-facto capital in Syria.
Rights groups have repeatedly called on Kurdish authorities and the Syrian government to investigate the fate of thousands who went missing during Daesh rule.