Clashes in As Suwayda leave 30 dead, Syria’s Interior Ministry reports

BEIRUT, July 14. /TASS/. At least 30 people were killed and more than 100 others were injured in armed clashes between gunmen from Arab tribes and Druze self-defense forces, the Syrian interim government’s Interior Ministry said in a statement quoted by newspaper Al Watan.

Earlier reports said 13 people had been killed, and 40 others had been injured. "The dangerous escalation of violence resulted from a breakdown in regional security and the failure by the local administration to cope with issues," the statement reads. "This is why the Syrian authorities deployed special units of security forces to the country’s south, tasking them with stabilizing the situation," according to the document. The Syrian Interior Ministry called on residents in As Suwayda "to cooperate with the authorities to put an end to the conflict and reinstate legitimacy and order as soon as possible."

Earlier, sheikhs in the Druze community denounced "attacks that left two children killed" and demanded a ceasefire to preserve civic peace. In a statement cited by Al Mayadeen TV, they emphasized the need for Syria’s new transitional government "to thwart attacks by armed gangs and ensure security along the Damascus-As Suwayda highway."

The Druze are a tight-knit ethnoreligious Arabic-speaking group living mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan who adhere to a specific faith that split from Shiite Islam in the Middle Ages. There are 700,000 Druze in Syria, making the minority the Arab republic’s third-largest after Kurds and Alawites.