Popular Rage Blankets Syria’s Sweida, Military Tensions Spike in Daraa

Popular anger has swept over the southern Syrian province of Sweida after news broke out on a senior security official having offended a spiritual leader of the Druze community.

“Across Sweida, activists have monitored growing popular discontent against the background of the head of military intelligence in Syria’s south, Brigadier General Luay Al-Ali, insulting spiritual leader of the Druze sect Hikmat al-Hijri,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

According to the UK-based watchdog, some individuals reacted to the news by tearing down posters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad despite ongoing efforts to defuse the tension.

Several prominent regime officials have apologized to Hijri, the Observatory said, adding that large crowds have flocked to visit the cleric’s residence in Sweida’s countryside in a show of support.

Visitors turned up from different Syrian regions, including Damascus and Quneitra.

Based on reports of Ali verbally insulting Hijri during a phone conversation, many are demanding that the intelligence director is dismissed.

A few days ago, Observatory sources reported that local factions in Sweida set up a checkpoint on the Damascus-Sweida highway and arrested a regime officer.

This came in reaction to regime forces having arbitrarily arrested a villager from the rural Sweida countryside earlier.

In the neighboring Daraa province, a powerful local body of former opposition fighters rejected conditions laid out by the Syrian regime to abort all attacks against Tafas town and Daraa’s western countryside.

During negotiations, regime representatives tied halting assaults to the Central Daraa Committee expelling six wanted former opposition leaders to Idlib in Syria’s north.

The Committee, for its part, made a counteroffer in which local tribes guarantee that the wanted individuals do not pursue any action against the Syrian regime.

Rejecting the regime’s conditions increases the likelihood of a confrontation.

Daraa has been rocked by instability since the regime’s 2018 takeover, with regular assassinations of militia leaders, regime troops, former opposition figures, and civilians.