BEIRUT, November 17. /TASS/. Security forces of Syria’s transitional government are monitoring the ceasefire in the al-Sweida governorate and are not planning any military operations there, Sweida Governor Mustafa al-Bakour said, as quoted by the SANA news agency.
"The rumors about a military operation are false," he said. "Those who are spreading them want to sow panic and force people to flee their homes in the harsh winter conditions."
These people, in his words, "are manipulating public opinion and are seeking to destabilize the situation."
The governor placed responsibility for the armed escalation on Druze self-defense forces who, he claims, are under strong influence of radical Druze cleric, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who calls for closer relations with Israel and defiance of the Damascus authorities.
Clashes between Druze forces and local Arab tribal militias have been going on south and west of the city of al-Sweida, the administrative center of the governorate of the same name, for the past three days. Self-defense units shelled government troops positions on the engagement line in al-Majalah, killing and wounding several Syrian soldiers.
The conflict between Arab militias and Druzes living in al-Sweida flared up in mid-July. According to the Asharq al Awsat newspaper, the clashes claimed more than 1,600 lives and led to power outages and problems with water supplies, as well as shortages of food, medicine and fuel in southern regions. On July 19, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, declared a ceasefire in the Sweida governorate in accordance with the internationally-mediated peace settlement plan.
The Druze are a tight-knit ethnoreligious Arabic-speaking group living mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan who adhere to a specific faith that split from Shiite Islam in the Middle Ages. Israeli Druzes live in Galilee in the north of the country and serve in the Israeli army and police along with Jews. However, after Israel gained control over the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War in 1967, most of the Druzes living there opted to reserve their Syrian citizenship. Syria’s Druze population numbers around 700,000, being the third biggest ethnoreligious minority after the Kurds and Alawites.