Syria’s Future After the Massacre in Sweida
Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been feted by establishment media as an ex-radical gone moderate. Yet massacres of civilians by government forces disturb the rosy picture of a return to peace.
A massacre in Sweida has strained the credibility of Syria’s new government. (Bakr Alkasem / AFP via Getty Images)
On July 15, the armed forces commanded by Syria’s transitional government, under the presidency of former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, were sent into the Druze-majority province of Sweida. The supposed aim was to restore calm after clashes between local Druze and Bedouin populations in the region. What ensued was a massacre that has strained the credibility of the country’s new government.
Last week, President al-Sharaa came to New York to address the UN General Assembly, where he was heralded as the new leader of a post-Assad Syria. Yet in the wake of massacres like the events in Sweida, the country’s peaceful, democratic post-Assad future remains anything but certain.
The Druze of Sweida
The massif of Jabal al-Arab, also called Jabal al-Druze, rises out of the wider Hauran plateau, as a highland of reddish valleys and hills. It lies at the heart of Sweida province, about two and a half hours southeast of the capital Damascus, on the border with Jordan. Around 90 percent of the population are Druze, a largely endogenous group of Levantine Arabs who practice a millennium-old faith often but not always understood as a sect within Islam. They also live in Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan — but the largest population is in Syria, where they number around 700,000, roughly half of them in Sweida.
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