Syrian forces withdraw from Soueida to avoid confrontation with Israel

(Soueida) Syrian interim president Ahmad al-Chareh, saying that he wanted to avoid an “open war” with Israel, withdrew his troops from the city with a Druze of Soueida on Thursday, where an AFP photographer saw at least 15 bodies lying in the street.

Israel had threatened to intensify its strikes if the Syrian power did not leave this province in southern Syria.

The inhabitants of Soueida discovered a victimized city on Thursday morning. An AFP correspondent counted 15 corpses lying in the center of the city, without being able to indicate if they were combatants or civilians.

Inter -community violence has killed more than 370 people since fighting broke out on Sunday, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory (OSDH).

They even more shaken the power of Ahmad al-Chareh who overthrew, at the head of a coalition of Sunni Islamist rebel groups, ex-president Bashar al-Assad in December, in a country bruised by almost 14 years of civil war.

Government forces had withdrawn from the main Druze province, on Thursday morning, said the OSDH and witnesses to AFP.

Members of the government forces told an AFP correspondent posted on the outskirts of the province that they had received the order to withdraw shortly before midnight and had completed their redeployment at dawn.

In a television speech during the night, Ahmad al-Chareh had announced the transfer “to local groups” and religious dignitaries from the responsibility for maintaining security in Soueida.

“We have given priority to the interest of Syrians rather than chaos and destruction,” said Al-Chareh, saying that he wanted to avoid “an open war” with Israel, whose intervention he condemned.

A few hours earlier, Israel had bombed several targets in the heart of Damascus.

A wing of a building from the Syrian army headquarters, contiguous to the Ministry of Defense, was destroyed by these strikes, which left three dead according to the authorities. Israel has also led other strikes near the presidential palace and around Damascus.

American mediation

The first clashes broke out on Sunday between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druzes fighters, with tense relations for decades.

The Syrian government then intervened with the displayed objective of restoring order and deployed its forces on Tuesday in Soueida, hitherto controlled by Druzes fighters. But the OSDH, Druzes witnesses and groups accused him of fighting the Druzes and reported many abuses.

Mr. Chareh stressed that “the effective intervention of American, Arab and Turkish mediation, saved the region from an unknown spell”.

The United States, allies of Israel and which displayed its support for the new Syrian leader despite its jihadist past, announced on Wednesday evening that an agreement had been concluded to restore calm in Syria.

“We have agreed on specific measures that will end this disturbing and terrifying situation this evening,” wrote US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on network X.

The spokesperson for the State Department, Tammy Bruce, had previously called the Syrian government to leave the conflict zone in the south of the country to appease tensions with Israel.

“Summary executions”

According to the OSDH, among the dead in the violence of the last days, 27 civilians were victims of “summary executions” by government forces.

In his speech, the interim president promised to “account” to the authors of abuses against “our Druze people, who is under the protection and responsibility of the State”.

He had made the same promise after the massacre of hundreds of members of the Alawite community, from which Bashar al-Assad came, in early March on the Syrian coast. But a commission of inquiry into these massacres has never rendered its conclusions.

The Druze community of Syria was, before the civil war, with some 700,000 people, present mainly in Soueida. This esoteric minority from a branch of Islam is also located in Lebanon and Israel.

On the border between Israel and Syria in Majdal Shams, dozens of people gathered Thursday morning, where chaos scenes had taken place the day before when hundreds of Druzes forced this border in both directions.

Young men went along this border segment on Thursday by brandishing Druzes flags in five colors. A Syrian Druze child agitated a small Israeli flag. His father, who did not wish to give his name, explained that they live in the neighboring village of Hader, Syria, and found their cousins in Majdal Shams, on the Israeli side. “We didn’t sleep at night, we only talked about,” he says.