Tribal forces flock to Suwayda, clashes reignite after Damascus withdraws

PARIS — Bedouin tribal fighters clashed with local Druze forces in Syria’s southern Suwayda province on Friday, one day after reported revenge attacks in the wake of a government withdrawal touched off a new wave of sectarian violence. 

Syrian security forces pulled out of Suwayda on Wednesday evening, nearly three days after Damascus launched a security operation in the province to quell fighting between local Bedouin tribes and Druze armed groups that began on Sunday. The move came under threat of Israeli airstrikes, and as part of an agreement with a local religious leader. 

Government operations against what Damascus calls “outlaw groups” in Suwayda had sparked a fierce response by Druze fighters. Hundreds of civilians were killed, injured and displaced during days of fighting, with videos circulating on social media of field executions and the humiliation and abuse of Druze in Suwayda by government-aligned forces. Damascus acknowledged that “criminal and unlawful behaviors” took place.

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday it had documented the unlawful killing of at least 13 people by “armed individuals affiliated with the interim authorities” on the day government forces entered Suwayda city, as well as the summary execution of six men near their homes.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), an independent monitor, has documented at least 321 deaths and 436 injuries in the province since Sunday. A doctor at the main hospital in Suwayda city told AFP on Friday that the facility had received “more than 400 bodies since Monday morning.” 

In the hours after government forces began to withdraw from Suwayda on Wednesday, some local forces turned their sights on Bedouin communities in the Druze-majority province. Druze fighters aligned with influential religious leader Hikmat al-Hijri reportedly executed Bedouin civilians, displaced communities and burned homes.

Hundreds were left stranded or encircled, including Abu Ahmad (a pseudonym), a Bedouin from a mixed village a few kilometers from Suwayda city. Syria Direct spoke to him on Thursday, as he sheltered in farmland outside the village with his wife and children. 

“Druze groups attacked our houses this morning. We did nothing to them,” he said. “They took vehicles, money, phones and gold from the women and told us to get out,” threatening to “slaughter the children and women if I didn’t leave quickly.” 

At the time, Abu Ahmad said around 700 people were stranded in the same area. With no means of transportation, he planned to try to walk under cover of darkness to neighboring Daraa, and was in contact with tribe members there to “come get us out.”

Such accounts sparked a wave of anger among Bedouin tribes across Syria, which announced a general mobilization and began to send fighters to Suwayda. On Thursday evening, tribal forces took control of several villages in the west and north of the province, including the area where Abu Ahmad was sheltering with his family.

Tribes respond

Since Thursday evening, Syrian clans and tribes from across the country have issued statements announcing they would send fighters to Suwayda province to rescue stranded Bedouin families. 

“The operation aims to break the siege on our people, who are trapped in Suwayda,” one tribal notable from Daraa province told Syria Direct. “The operation does not target the Druze. We have been neighbors and family for hundreds of years.” 

He accused al-Hijri and the military groups behind him of involvement in the drug trade and seeking to “drag the Druze into a confrontation with [other Syrians], which is what Israel wants—chaos and a civil war without end.”

Hundreds of tribal fighters continued to arrive in southern Syria throughout the day on Friday, as widespread clashes continued in western and northern Suwayda. 

At 6PM local time, local media outlet Suwayda 24 reported “armed convoys coming from the direction of the Syrian Badia [eastern desert]” in northeastern Suwayda, to which “hundreds of displaced people moved in recent days, since it was a safe area.” 

Israel, which has portrayed itself as a protector of Syria’s Druze since the fall of the regime last year and during the current crisis in Suwayda, said earlier on Friday it would “allow” the “limited entry” of Syrian security forces in response to the renewed fighting. Damascus has not moved to intervene, and state media said on Friday that there were no preparations to do so.

Displacement and calls for calm

Nearly 80,000 people have been displaced in Suwayda since Sunday, including 20,000 on Thursday after government forces withdrew, according to the International Organization for Migration. 

Many of those displaced from Suwayda city and the surrounding countryside have moved south, toward the border with Jordan. More than 1,000 Bedouin families from Suwayda have fled to neighboring Daraa province over the past two days, according to provincial authorities. 

Sheikh Rakan al-Khudeir, from a tribe in the al-Lajat region of eastern Daraa on the border with Suwayda, told Al Jazeera Arabic on Friday that “more than 2,000 people” remained trapped by “the al-Hijri groups, amid horrific violations.”

Al-Hijri’s spiritual presidency put out a statement on Thursday calling on fighters to “act in accordance with known principles and respect the peaceful Bedouin tribespeople.” The same day, al-Hijri said in a video that those carrying out “vandalism or incitement only represent themselves.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk decried abuses in Suwayda by Damascus’ forces as well as “armed Druze and Bedouin forces” on Friday, emphasizing the “bloodshed and violence must stop.” 

Türk also stressed for action to be taken to tamp down “incitement to violence and hate speech, both online and offline.” 

Sectarian rhetoric and incitement exploded within Syria and on social media during the fighting in Suwayda this week. This includes calls to boycott goods and individuals from Suwayda and renewed tensions at universities, hearkening back to attacks on Druze students on campuses in May.

‘Full responsibility’

Abu Anas (a pseudonym), a Druze political activist from Suwayda city, said the sound of the fighting had not reached the provincial capital on Friday afternoon local time, and seemed “a little far off.” Local media has reported widespread outages of communications, electricity and water for six days in the city. 

“Violations and mistakes were committed by groups affiliated with al-Hijri after government forces withdrew, and we tried to contain them quickly,” Abu Anas said. “They were a response to the violations committed by groups accompanying government forces, before they withdrew.”

“Both sides of the conflict have committed violations, some of which were reactions,” he added.

But ultimately, the Syrian government is responsible for what is happening in Suwayda, Abu Anas said. “By its actions and mistakes, the government raised al-Hijri’s stock. He could have been an outcast, his rhetoric unwelcome,” he said. “The government should have addressed us, as civilians, not the religious sheikhs.”

Recent months have seen significant internal division in Suwayda between those seeking to engage with the new state and those who, like al-Hijri, viewed it as little more than a jihadist group in the guise of a government. But amid the latest violence and imminent danger, even groups once open to Damascus—like the influential Men of Dignity faction—have shifted.

“We need a public review after this crisis ends,” Abu Anas said. “Al-Hijri is responsible for bloodshed, and so is the government, which bears full responsibility.” 

This report was originally produced in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.