With the international consensus being that President Bashar al-Assad has effectively won the now nine-year long Syrian war, he is now looking to re-establish his total control over the country. As evidenced by a recent attack on Sweida at the hands of Syrian government forces, the province of Sweida may be about to enter its most turbulent and bloodiest time yet.

In order to understand what might happen next in Sweida. It is important to understand its position in the Syrian war and preceding protest movement against the Syrian regime.

The protests begin

Sweida is a province of Syria located in the south of the country. Its capital is the city of Sweida, which lies approximately 100km to the south of Damascus, Syria’s capital city.

The province of Sweida borders the province of Daraa – whose capital is the city of Daraa. On 18 March 2011 a peaceful protest movement started in Daraa city after 15 youths were arrested for scrawling graffiti on their school wall denouncing the Assad regime.

The protest movement quickly spread throughout the country with many Syrians taking to the streets to demand democratic reforms in the country.

On 26 March 2011, Sweida province saw its first protests, starting in the village of al-Quraya and later spreading to the cities of Sweida and Shahba.

The Syrian regime, led by Bashar al-Assad, supressed the protests using its security forces, as well as what are known as shabiha (meaning: thugs) in the pay of the regime.[1] However, the government response was not as harsh as in other parts of Syria.

The war in Syria develops

Sweida is home to most of Syria’s minority Druze population, which makes up approximately 90% of the province’s 700,000 population. Sweida is also home to small communities of Christian and Sunni Muslims.

As the protest movement developed in Sweida, the spiritual authority of the Druze people, known as al-Aql Sheikhdom, sided with the regime. With the war likely to take a sectarian edge the minority Druze community believed that they would fare better under the minority Alawite government of Assad than a majority Sunni post-Assad government.[2]

Because of the position of al-Aql Sheikhdom, the government response to the protests in Sweida was not as brutal as those in other parts of Syria.  However, what the province did see was a general rise in lawlessness as well as an increase in war-profiteering ventures, such as arms smuggling, drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransom.

Because of this, in the second half of 2012 the Rijjal al-Karama Movement was established under the leadership of Sheikh Wahid al-Bal‘ous. The al-Karama Movement was set up in response to the “predominance of chaos, abuses and corruption left behind by [local] militias loyal to the regime, which had started to threaten the breakup of society and of moral values.”[3]

Locals report that the man in charge of much of the illegal activity in Sweida was none other than President Assad’s ‘man in the south’, Wafiq Nasser – security and military commander of the southern region of Syria. Nasser used his network of shabiha and local militias to run a drug and arms smuggling operation through Sweida and Daraa following the start of the Syrian War.[4]

The primary function of al-Karama is to protect the province of Sweida and all its people (Druze, Christian and Muslim) from any force that would attack it. This also includes the protection of any ‘guests’, which includes any refugee from abroad (mainly Iraq) and any internally displaced Syrians in the province.

However, al-Karama is not a powerful group. It relies on self-funding and donations in order to obtain weapons and equipment. The Movement has also refused funding from external sources, so their aim of self-protection will not be diverted by any political agendas or “projects of division”.[5]

The movement has not taken an offensive side in the Syrian War, believing that Syrian-on-Syrian violence is wrong. For this reason al-Karama has stood against the forcible conscription of Sweida people into the Syrian army. 

Sheikh Wahid Bal’ous was an outspoken critic of the regime (and rebels). He stated that President Assad was not the protector of minorities he claimed to be, highlighting the hostile and oppressive nature of the regime towards the Druze people. Bal’ous also spoke out against the deaths of Sweida residents (including youths) at the hands of the Sweida branch of the Syrian military intelligence, led by Wafiq al-Nasser.[6]

On 3 September 2015 the leader of al-Karama, Sheikh Wahid al-Bal’ous and 3 others were killed in a car bombing on the outskirts of Sweida city. After the wounded of the bombing had been taken to the hospital of Sweida a second car bomb targeted the hospital killing 50 other people – many of them members of al-Karama that had gone to visit the hospital.

This was a co-ordinated attack aimed at wiping out the movement. The finger of blame was pointed at the Syrian regime.

Following the loss of their leader, the Rijjal al-Karama Movement suffered from a lack of organisation, eventually becoming more split between the various cities, towns and villages of Sweida province.

With the government of Syria apparently ready to attack, detain, torture and kill any dissenters in Sweida, amid growing sectarian tensions throughout the country, and a growing Islamist presence, the death of Sheikh Wahid al-Bal’ous was a massive blow to the security of Sweida.

ISIS attacks Sweida

On 25 July 2018 the Islamic State (IS) launched an attack on the province of Sweida. In the dead of night, the militants entered villages in the north east of Sweida, knocked on the doors of locals and proceeded to slaughter them.

IS also deployed snipers and suicide bombers in an attack that lasted 12-hours. By the end more than 250 Sweida residents had been killed, over 100 injured, and 14 women and one man (who was later executed on camera) kidnapped.

With no help from the Syrian army, which was present in and around Sweida at the time, it was up to the people of Sweida to repel the attack.

Al-Karama called its men, other similar informal security groups called their men, Sweida locals loyal to the regime rose up. Even people from Sweida living in Damascus and other parts of Syria answered the calls of their families and friends. The people of Sweida united.

The Syrian army arrived only when the IS militants were retreating.

Some people in Sweida accused the Syrian government of incompetence for not detecting the Islamic State forces that managed to enter the city. Others have blamed the government for putting the city in danger by transferring hundreds of Islamic State fighters (and their weapons) from Damascus to the Eastern Syrian Desert in earlier in the year.[7]

There is also another view that claims it is in the interests of the Syrian Government to allow such attacks to take place, as this would give it a pretext to enforce even stricter controls on the province of Sweida.

Sweida and Daraa tensions

Six months after the attack on Sweida the Islamic State collapsed. However, this did not end the troubling security situation for the province.

The presence of kidnapping gangs in Sweida and neighbouring Daraa has seen a rise in tensions between the two provinces in recent years.

Accordng to a local notable of Sweida, the Syrian government has incited the rise in kidnapping gangs by releasing know criminals from prison as part of several supposed amnesties.[8]

The tension came to a head on 27 March 2020. Below is a sequence of events according to local reports, some of which were published on Twitter by @Syrianzo on 4 April 2020.

On 27 March 2020 two civilians from Busra al-Sham, Daraa, went to neighbouring Sweida to sell some cows. The two civilians were kidnapped for ransom by a local armed group.

In retaliation, three armed men entered Sweida and attempted to kidnap three civilians near the village of al-Quraya. During the attempt the kidnappers shot and killed one of the locals before retreating.

When a handful of armed al-Quraya villagers went searching for the three gunmen they were ambushed by a division of the Syrian army armed with light, medium and heavy weapons.

During a battle which lasted three hours, nine residents from al-Quraya and some neighbouring villages were killed and six injured villagers kidnapped. Despite assurances that the six injured men would be returned the next day, they were executed by their captors.

The families of the victims only found about the fate of their loved ones after receiving photo and picture messages to their mobile phones. Some people also received messages saying that Sweida would be “cleansed”.

A statement released by al-Karama on 1 April 2020, says that the attack was carried out by the 8th Brigade of the Fifth Legion.

The Fifth Legion is a division of the Syrian army based in Sweida’s neighbour province Daraa. It was created in 2016 by the Russian presence in Syria to provide more manpower for the depleted Syrian army. It is made up of active militias, inactive (or disbanded) militias and former rebels from inactive (or defeated) rebel groups.[9]

The leader of the Fifth Legion’s 8th Brigade is Ahmad al-Awda, an ex-rebel himself and former leader of the rebel group Quwwat Shabab Al-Sunna. Since making his switch over to the ‘regime side’, al-Awda has become known as “Mosow’s man” in Daraa.”[10]

Al-Karama labelled him a “terrorist” for his actions.

The al-Karama statement also claims that responsibility for the attack lies with Syrian government and its Russian backers. Al-Karama also labelled the attack a war crime for the execution of wounded and captured al-Quraya villagers.

The day after the attack on 27 March, a group from Sweida kidnapped, beat and later released three civilians from Busra al-Sham. On 31 March, Daraa notables and sheikhs intervened to end the tensions by releasing a statement rejecting division and offering to cooperate with its neighbours to bring security to the region.

Since then the notables of Sweida and Daraa have held a meeting and released a statement of “good neighbourliness” between the two provinces. The statement pledged cooperation to end the kidnappings, and to restore social and economic relations.

After this positive move, the question now is, what is next for the region of Sweida? The province is still technically part of the Syrian state and has been since the protests began in 2011.

However, in response to Sweida’s official ‘neutral’ stance in the war, the government of Syria and its associated security apparatus has shown itself to be either indifferent to the security of Sweida or directly opposed to it.

Footnotes

[1] http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103144/7/Sweida_Conflict_Dynamics_English_21_Jan_2020_.pdf

[2] Indeed, as early as 2011, some protestors and armed rebels in neighbouring Daraa began using slogans associating the Druze with the Assad regime and branding them heretics. This was shortly followed by attacks on Sweida from the al-Qaeda affiliated group Jabhat al-Nusra.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-druze-and-assad-strategic-bedfellows

[3] http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103144/7/Sweida_Conflict_Dynamics_English_21_Jan_2020_.pdf

[4] https://www.baladi-news.com/en/articles/6779/wafiq-nasser-runs-drug-trade-in-sweida-and-daraa

[5] http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/103144/7/Sweida_Conflict_Dynamics_English_21_Jan_2020_.pdf

[6] The Issue of Minorities in Syria: From Proscription to Tyrannical Presence by The King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/27/isis-knocked-on-doors-calling-out-locals-by-name-and-slaughtered-families

[8] https://en.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/53817/

[9] From Insurgents to Soldiers: The Fifth Assault Corps in Daraa, Southern Syria by Abdullah Al-Jabassini

https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/62964

[10] Ibid.