At least 248 people have been killed in southern Syria’s Sweida province following several days of clashes that triggered the deployment of government forces, a war monitor said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Sporadic fighting persisted despite the Syrian defence ministry announcing a ceasefire on Tuesday after government forces entered the Druze-majority city due to deadly clashes between local fighters and Bedouin tribes.<\/p>\n
The toll includes 92 members of the Druze minority, 28 of them civilians with 21 “killed in summary executions by government forces”, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.<\/p>\n
At least 138 Syrian security personnel were killed, along with 18 allied Bedouin fighters, the monitor said.<\/p>\n
Clashes erupted on Sunday in the Druze-majority province of Sweida between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes following the kidnapping of a Druze vegetable merchant which triggered tit-for-tat abductions, according to the Observatory.<\/p>\n
Government forces announced their intervention in the province on Monday to break up the clashes and deployed to Sweida city on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
However, according to the Observatory, witnesses and Druze factions, these forces intervened on the side of the Bedouins.<\/p>\n
The violence included summary executions of civilians and the burning and looting of homes and shops, according to testimonies from residents, a local news network and the Observatory.<\/p>\n
The war monitor reported clashes and intermittent shelling in Sweida on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
An AFP correspondent inside the city saw around 30 bodies, including some security personnel and fighters in civilian clothing carrying weapons.<\/p>\n
He added that columns of smoke were rising from some neighbourhoods amid the sound of intermittent shelling.<\/p>\n
The local Suwayda 24 news network reported that the city had been hit by “heavy shelling with heavy artillery and mortar shells” since Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
The Syrian defence ministry accused “outlaw groups” of attacking its forces inside the city, saying they are now “continuing to respond to the sources of fire”.<\/p>\n
The violence is the largest since deadly clashes between government forces and Druze fighters near Damascus and in Sweida province killed over 100 people in April and May.<\/p>\n
After the December overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad, who long presented himself as a protector of minorities, the new Islamist authorities and Druze factions discussed potential integration into government ranks, but have not reached a full agreement.<\/p>\n
Israel, which had previously said it would protect the Druze in Syria, reiterated its warning to Damascus on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Israel may “raise the level of responses against the (Syrian) regime if the message is not understood”.<\/p>\n
Israel previously warned Syrian authorities that it would not allow their forces to be present in southern Syria.<\/p>\n
bur-lar\/nad\/dcp<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 248 people have been killed in southern Syria’s Sweida province following several days of clashes that triggered the deployment of government forces, a war monitor said on Wednesday. Sporadic fighting persisted despite the Syrian defence ministry announcing a ceasefire on Tuesday after government forces entered the Druze-majority city due to deadly clashes between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[95,695,673,125],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-conflict","tag-druze","tag-minorities","tag-syria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}