Israeli army resumes strikes on southern Syria
The strike on Sweida province was the Israeli army's first attack on Syria since its air stirkes last week on government troops and allied militia forces from Syria's Sunni majority, who had aimed to capture Sweida city. The provincial capital and heartland of the Druze minority has been the centre of heavy fighting in Syria.
Thousands of militants have been posted near the border with Jordan as part of the offensive. Israel has accused Damascus of breaching demilitarisation deals that forbade the Syrian government from posting the military in the south. The government is mainly comprised of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, which led to assault that toppled former president Bashar Al Assad in December.
One of the sources said the latest Israeli attack came after the pro-government forces used Turkish-made Shahin drones to attack the city of Shahba, near the provincial capital of Sweida.
'They want to capture Shahba because it is seen as a weak underbelly to Sweida [city],' said the source, who added that the use of drones indicates that Syrian army personnel drawn from HTS ranks are among the attacking forces.
The target of the Israeli strike on Tuesday was a column comprised of fighters loyal to Damascus, whose members have been attacking a rural region near Shahba, using Turkish drones and Grad rockets, the sources said. The area is near the main road between Sweida and Damascus, a supply artery until the government laid siege to the governorate last week.
Under a US-brokered truce, pro-government forces withdrew last week from Sweida city but remained in the mostly Druze governorate.
Suwayda24, a network of citizen journalists, said a pro-government militia called 'the army of the clans' attacked grain silos near the road on Monday, and used drones to attack Shahba, a city 'full of the displaced' from the rest of the governorate. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Last week, Israel mounted dozens of raids against Syrian security formations to defend the Druze, a sect of several hundred thousand in Syria whose leaders say is facing one of the biggest threats to its existence.
The government has mounted three waves of incursions against Sweida since June 10, saying order needed to be restored after Sunni-Druze clashes in the city, sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant. The government said Druze militias killed hundreds of Sunnis in Sweida after its intervention.
Sweida was a centre of a non-violent protest against the Assad regime in the last year of his rule. But the Druze spiritual leadership, which had mostly opposed the former regime, also resisted the takeover of power by HTS, accusing the group of extremism and non-commitment to democracy.
US diplomatic pressure on Syrian authorities, and Israeli raids, halted the main thrust of the offensive on Sunday. However, Sweida remains under siege by the central authorities.
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