Latest news with #Hayat Tahrir Al Sham
The National
6 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Israeli and Syrian officials to meet in Baku in bid to contain Sweida violence
Israeli and Syrian officials will meet in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku on Thursday to discuss containing hostilities in the mostly Druze area of Sweida in south Syria, senior diplomats have told The National. The move comes after an offensive by Damascus that has drawn in Sunni militants and risked regional instability. Axios first reported that Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, had arranged the meeting, without specifying the venue. However, officials from Turkey, the most powerful backer of the post- Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, will also be present in Baku, along with US officials, the sources said. Israel conducted an aerial campaign last week that killed hundreds of Syrian military personnel, curbing a government offensive on Sweida. The city's Druze leadership has largely opposed attempts by Damascus to deploy security forces to take control of the area. The central government is dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), a splinter group of Al Qaeda that ousted the former regime in December. "The immediate goal will be to stop destruction of Syrian assets by Israel as part of a deconfliction deal," one diplomat said. "In return the Israelis will want [Syria's President Ahmad] Al Shara to leave the Druze alone, for now." A second source in Jordan said the meeting was arranged shortly before a deadline set by Israel for all Syrian government forces to withdraw from the governorate of Sweida. Israel said it would resume the aerial campaign otherwise. Syrian and Israeli officials conducted a face-to-face meeting in Baku last month, arranged by Turkey and attended by senior officials from the two sides. It addressed southern Syria and touched on the potential for a broader peace deal, the sources said. "The Israelis made it clear that they will not allow Al Shara free hand in Sweida. It seems that he thought that he had enough US and Turkish support to ignore them," one of the sources said. Damascus deployed thousands of militants near the border with Jordan as part of an offensive by the government to control Sweida. Israel has accused Damascus of breaching demilitarisation deals that forbade the Syrian government from posting the military in the south. Although the thrust of the offensive on Sweida subsided at the weekend, government forces were on Wednesday still attacking rural Druze areas next to the city of Shahba, near Sweida city, the provincial capital.
The National
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Israeli army resumes strikes on southern Syria
The Israel i army carried out a new drone strike on Tuesday against pro-government troops in southern Syria, sources in Jordan said. 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.
The National
21-07-2025
- Health
- The National
Syrian authorities evacuate Bedouin civilians from Sweida as fragile truce holds
The Syrian government has evacuated hundreds of Bedouin families from the mostly Druze city of Sweida to Deraa in a bid to prevent further fighting as a fragile ceasefire appears to hold. A truce ended a week of deadly clashes in Sweida but the city appears to remain under siege, with government troops and auxiliaries surrounding both the city and its rural outskirts. A Syrian Red Crescent official told The National that the families, many of them from Bedouin backgrounds, were taken in 120 buses to the near by province of Deraa, the launch pad of fierce attacks against Sweida by the government. The government troops, comprised mainly of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an Al Qaeda offshoot, attacked Sweida after the Druze spiritual leader Hikmat Al Hijri refused arrival of security troops last week. The government sought to send its troops to the city after mutual kidnappings between the Sunnis and the Druze, followed by sectarian clashes. The aid official said that the Red Crescent is ready to send more aid to Sweida after dozens of lorries reached the city from Damascus on Sunday, carrying mainly flour and basic foods. 'We can provide Sweida with every thing for initial recovery,' he said, declining to say why no more additional supplies were sent since. Residents of Sweida have been holed up in their homes without electricity and water and food supplies have been scarce. Khaldoun, a doctor in the main hospital in the city, who did not want to give his last name, said no medical supplies have reached the hospital and that the situation is 'catastrophic', with hundreds of bodies in the hospital and supplies dwindling to treat the wounded. Under a deal brokered last week by Tom Barrack, the US envoy to Syria, government troops withdrew from Sweida city to its environs. The agreement stipulated a prisoners exchange, safe passage for those in Sweida who wish to leave to do so, and the flow of humanitarian aid, diplomats in Amman said. The Interior Ministry said on Sunday that Sweida city was 'evacuated of all tribal fighters, and clashes within the city's neighbourhoods were halted'. The UN migration agency said more than 128,000 people in Sweida province have been displaced by the violence.
