University students who returned to Druze-majority Suwayda during recent sectarian tensions on their campuses were stopped by a local armed group as they tried to go back to school last week. Some fear education is being politicized amid tensions with Damascus.
As transitional justice remains out of reach, hundreds of extrajudicial killings—predominantly of Alawites—have taken place in central Syria since the start of the year, with state security forces accused of involvement in some cases.
After a short-lived period of calm, clashes returned to Suwayda province on Tuesday, raising questions about the durability of a recent security agreement and the risk of a new wave of violence in southern Syria.
This week’s violence in Druze-majority Jaramana and Sahnaya reignited longstanding questions surrounding civil peace and the impact of sectarian violence on social cohesion in Syria.
A photo of Syrian Minister of Justice Mazhar al-Wais shaking hands with Judge Ammar Bilal—the former chief prosecutor at the Assad regime’s infamous Counter-Terrorism Court—ignited a firestorm on Syrian social media last week.
It took years for Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri to move from outward support for the Assad regime to cautious criticism and finally open opposition. With the new authorities in Damascus, he is taking an adversarial stance from the start.
An SDF-Damascus agreement is underway in Aleppo’s Kurdish neighborhoods, which could serve as a proving ground for the success of a broader agreement in northern Syria.
Three weeks on, little tangible progress has been made towards implementing the SDF-Damascus agreement, which faces a range of internal and external challenges.
Factions in Syria’s southern Suwayda province are split on whether to merge with Damascus. One side—aligned with Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri—is opposed, while the other—including the powerful Men of Dignity—calls for opening to Damascus and joining its institutions.
Syrians welcomed news of a landmark agreement to integrate Kurdish-led forces into state institutions on Monday, hoping it would prevent bloodshed and prevent any partition of the country, while “the devil is in the details” of its implementation.
