Violent clashes between pro-government fighters and Druze militia around Syria’s capital, Damascus, spread on Wednesday and drew Israel’s military into the fray, leaving at least 11 people dead, according to the Syrian authorities and a war monitor.
The total death toll for two days of unrest rose to at least 28 after the latest outbreak of gun battles.
The Israeli military said it had carried out a warning attack on the outskirts of Damascus against what it called “extremists” said to be preparing to attack members of the Druze religious minority, according to a joint statement by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and the defense minister.
Israel’s government has close relations with the Druze community in Israel and has offered to protect the Druze in Syria should they come under attack amid a tumultuous transition of power. The Syrian authorities made no immediate comment on the Israeli attack.
The latest fighting spread overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday to the town of Ashrafieh Sahnaya, a largely Druze town just south of Damascus, when armed gunmen attacked checkpoints and vehicles belonging to government forces, according to the Syrian state news agency, SANA. That followed clashes a day earlier in Jaramana, another town on the southern outskirts of Damascus that is also home to a large number of Druze.
The violence in Ashrafieh Sahnaya on Wednesday saw local Druze militia battle with pro-government fighters, according to the war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain.
A Syrian interior ministry official called the gunmen who attacked government forces on Wednesday “criminals” and said that the government would “strike with an iron fist,” according to Sana.
The fighting this week erupted after an audio clip circulated on social media purporting to be of a Druze cleric insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The cleric denied the accusation, and Syria’s interior ministry said that its initial findings showed that he was not the person in the clip.
Nonetheless, appeals for calm by the Syrian government did little to stem the anger, with protests breaking out in a number of cities. Many of the demonstrations took on a sectarian tone with some protesters calling for violence against the Druze, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria is a predominantly Sunni nation, while the Druze are a religious group that practices a mysterious offshoot of Islam. The rebels who led the overthrow of the former dictator Bashar al-Assad belonged to a Sunni Islamist group that was once linked to al Qaida. They now run the government and the national military. Many Syrian Druze have rejected any offer by Israel to come to their defence.
New York Times News Service