Druze demand self determination in largest protest held since deadly clashes in Syria

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BEIRUT (AP) — Hundreds of people demonstrated in Syria’s southern city of Sweida and elsewhere on Saturday to demand the right to self determination for the Druze minority, the largest protests to take place since deadly clashes in the area last month.

Some of the protesters waved Israeli flags to thank Israel for intervening on their side during heavy clashes in mid-July between Druze militias and armed tribal groups and government forces.

Saturday’s demonstration comes as Syria grapples with deep ethnic and religious divisions following the collapse of the Assad family rule last December. The transition has proven fragile, with renewed violence erupting in March along the coast and in July in Sweida, a city with a significant Druze population, highlighting the continued threat to peace after years of civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian war monitor, said the protesters expressed their rejection of the interim central government in Damascus and demanded that those responsible for atrocities against Druze be brought to justice. The Observatory said some of the protesters called on Israel to intervene to support their demand of self determination.

Rayyan Maarouf, who heads the activist media collective Suwayda 24, said Saturday’s demonstration in Sweida was the largest since last months's clashes, and that there were similar gatherings in areas including the nearby towns of Shahba and Salkhad.

He added that this is the first time people protested under the slogan of self determination.

“This is an unprecedented change for the Druze in Syria,” Maarouf told The Associated Press.

Clashes erupted on July 13 between Druze militias and local Sunni Muslim Bedouin tribes in Sweida. Government forces then intervened, nominally to restore order, but ended up essentially siding with the Bedouins against the Druze.

Israel intervened in defense of the Druze, launching dozens of airstrikes on convoys of government fighters and even striking the Syrian Defense Ministry headquarters in central Damascus.

Atrocities were committed during the clashes that left hundreds of people dead.

The new interim government set up a committee last month tasked with investigating attacks on civilians in the sectarian violence in the country’s south. It is supposed to issue a report within three months.

The Druze religious sect began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. Over half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981.