In Syria, fighting has stopped in Suweida, according to authorities

Fighting has ended in Suweida, the Syrian government announced on Sunday, July 20. The southern city has been retaken by Druze groups, and state forces have deployed to the region, which has been gripped by intercommunal violence that has left nearly a thousand dead in one week.

"Suweida has been evacuated of all tribal fighters, and fighting in the city's neighborhoods has stopped," Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba wrote on Telegram.

Violence between Druze and Sunni Bedouin groups that erupted on July 13 in this region of southern Syria has left 940 people dead, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group that relies on a vast network of sources across the country. Nearly 87,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The Syrian government announced a ceasefire in Suweida province on Saturday and began redeploying forces there in an effort to restore peace. "Security forces will mobilize all their energies to end attacks and fighting and restore stability in the governorate," the ministry spokesman said.

The government of interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa had already deployed its forces to Suwayda on Tuesday. However, it withdrew them after Israel bombarded several government targets in Damascus. Israel said it wanted to protect the Druze community and felt threatened by the presence of Syrian government forces in the region near its border. A ceasefire was subsequently agreed between Syria and Israel, brokered by the United States.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday urged Syrian authorities to "hold to account and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities, including within their own ranks."

He also called on the Syrian government to prevent " the Islamic State and other violent jihadists from entering the region and committing massacres there." The Islamic State group had taken control of large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory at the start of the civil war, which erupted in 2011, proclaiming the creation of a cross-border "caliphate" in 2014.

US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces defeated it in 2019, but the jihadists maintained a presence, particularly in the vast Syrian desert.