The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices – Fajawat, February 21, 2025

by | Feb 23, 2025 | Chronicle

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE“

An open-ended transition

 

The transitional government has formed a preparatory committee to organize the National Dialogue Conference, made up of 7 people, including 2 women. We still don’t know the date of this conference, which everyone is hoping and praying for. Everyone hopes to see a perfect representation of Syrian society, although no information has been given on its composition, except that the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria will not be invited.

A first meeting of the preparatory committee was held in Homs, bringing together 400 participants to discuss six major issues: transitional justice, the drafting of the new constitution, institutional reforms, public and political freedoms, the role of civil society and economic organization. It should be noted that the committee’s powers are purely consultative, and its recommendations will be forwarded to the government.

Transitional justice with blurred outlines

February saw the resurfacing of the Tadamon massacre of April 2013. Tadamon is a district of Damascus where almost 500 civilians, including a number of Palestinians, had been coldly pushed blindfolded into a pit before being executed by gunshot, all filmed by the perpetrators of the crime. On February 8, a controversial visit to the crime scene by three of the massacre’s masterminds – amnestied in exchange for their collaboration – accompanied by two General Security officials, provoked a demonstration by several hundred local residents revolted by the presence of their executioners. Then, 10 days later, three executors were arrested. The fate of the main perpetrator of the executions, who had admitted the facts to a journalist, remains unknown.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Embassy in Damascus, long criticized for its complicity with the Assad regime, has just made public a list of 1,794 names of Palestinians from Syria, Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon who disappeared under the dictatorship. The aim of this publication is to help the new authorities gather information on their fate, although it is not known how the embassy obtained these names.

The issue of foreign prisoners and fighters, revealing the challenges of the proxy war

Algeria has entered the dance of diplomatic negotiations with Al Sharaa, after having been reluctant to congratulate the new strongman in Damascus on his appointment. Long a supporter of the Assad regime, it is now demanding the release of 500 Polisario Front militiamen captured in Aleppo during the liberation of Syria in early December. The Polisario Front is the armed faction supported by Algeria in its conflict with Morocco over Western Sahara. The presence of its fighters in Syria is explained by the fact that they were trained there by Iranian forces…

In Lebanon, several hundred Syrian prisoners are the subject of negotiations between the two countries. More than 2,000 Syrians are imprisoned in Lebanon, most of them arrested under the “anti-terrorist law” because of their real or supposed affiliation with the Free Syrian Army. A hundred of them have gone on strike to demand their extradition to Syria.

Finally, and this is a major issue for the security situation in Syria and neighboring Iraq, thousands of Islamic State fighters and their families detained in the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps are being gradually repatriated to their native Iraq. This is in addition to the thousands of Shiite fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan belonging to the pro-Iranian Fatemiyoun and Zaynabiyoun militias who have taken refuge in Iraq since the fall of the regime, and whose presence there could become the justification for further violence or foreign air strikes on Iraqi territory.

Kurds under pressure from all sides

While the control and resorption of prison camps in eastern Syria remains the sole responsibility of Kurdish militias, this issue has been at the heart of intense negotiations with the new regime in Damascus for the past two months. The risk of deflagration in the form of revolts or mass escapes by Islamic State prisoners is imminent, especially after Trump foolishly suspended all US humanitarian aid ($460 million in 2024).

This week the two sides moved closer to an agreement for the integration into the New Syrian Army of fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as well as for the exit of their foreign fighters. Nothing is clear, however, about the fate of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) and Rojava’s democratic and feminist project at the end of these agreements, which seem to imply a forced renunciation of federalism, autonomy and popular self-defense in the face of Turkish imperialism, nationalism and conservative Islamism.

Iraqi Kurdish leader Barzani, along with France and Germany, have pleaded with al-Sharaa for the protection of Kurdish populations, but we know how much more important diplomatic and economic compromises are to them than the popular emancipation project carried by the Kurdish left. Many of the latter are awaiting the advice and directives of the Kurdish leader Öcalan, who now seems to be authorized to transmit messages to his supporters and followers from his prison in Imrali.

And the Zionist colony continues to spread…

Every week Israel advances into Syrian territory, visibly seeking to seize all the region’s water resources (Mount Hermon, Yarmouk Basin, Al-Mantara Reservoir). Seven new villages were occupied and the occupying army set up six additional military posts. At the same time, the air force bombed the Syrian military airport of Khalkhala and an ammunition depot south of Damascus, allegedly used by Hamas. This grotesque allegation completely ignores the Syrian situation and the complex relations between Hamas and the new Syrian authorities: the bigger the better, especially in the face of an international community now accustomed to letting the pyromaniacs Netanyahu and Trump do as they please.

The Arab League is due to hold a meeting in Cairo on February 27, with a view to developing a joint Arab strategy to counter the expansionism and ethnic cleansing of the United States and Israel…

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices – Fajawat, February 7, 2025

by | Feb 8, 2025 | Chronicle

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE“

A lot has changed since our last chronicle, and it’s not easy to pick out what’s most relevant and useful for understanding the general context of post-Assad Syria two months after its collapse.

Official inauguration and promises by al-Sharaa

Ahmed al-Sharaa was officially confirmed in his role as interim president on January 29, following the first visit of a foreign head of state to the new Syria, represented by the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. This appointment, made without outside consultation, was decided at a conference attended by dozens of military personnel, and granted Al-Sharaa the power to set up a “temporary” legislative council for the duration of the transition.

On this occasion, he delivered his first speech to the nation. The speech lasted five minutes, but was praised for its simplicity and also for his choice to pay tribute to the struggles of Syrian men and women, whom he took care to name using an inclusive vocabulary.

Two days after Sharaa paid tribute to the martyr Hamza al-Khatib, the child from Deraa whose abduction, torture and murder by the henchmen of the Assad regime had been one of the sparks of the 2011 revolt, his torturer Atef Najib, cousin of Bashar al-Assad, was arrested in Latakia. Four days later, Assad’s former Interior Minister between 2011 and 2018, Mohammad al-Shaar, surrendered to the new authorities.

On February 5, Al-Sharaa and his Prime Minister finally took the time to meet with associations of families of the disappeared, before reaffirming their willingness to create a specific department to investigate these disappearances, to protect the sites and evidences of the crimes and to prosecute all criminals of the former regime in a perspective of transitional justice. 

One of the most symbolic events of early February was the coming-out of “CAESAR”, the former agent of Assad’s military police who brought out nearly 55,000 photographs from Syria, risking his life to provide evidence of the torture and mass executions perpetrated by the former regime. His revelations led to the introduction of a “Caesar law” in 2020.

In his first open interview with Al-Jazeera yesterday Farid Al-Madhan, who spent 10 years in exile in France and lived in constant fear, presents himself as “son of free Syria, from Deraa, cradle of the Syrian revolution” and calls for the lifting of the sanctions against Syria that bear his code name.

Tracking down Assad’s henchmen and daily killings

The transitional government’s army continues to carry out military operations to track down former henchmen of the Assad regime, particularly in the Homs region, where in recent weeks armed groups of uncertain affiliations have carried out numerous extrajudicial executions.

Seven new “security campaigns” have been launched by government armed forces in various regions, while human rights organizations continue to report numerous murders and settlements of scores on a daily basis throughout the country.

An unidentified group murdered some fifteen civilians in a predominantly Alawite village north of Hama on January 31, while government forces and Hezbollah have been clashing for the past two days near the Lebanese border east of Qusayr, which has long been the main logistical and human crossing point for pro-Iranian militias.

East of the Euphrates, coalition forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces have also carried out five security campaigns, arresting dozens of former regime members and Islamic State fighters.

Al-Sharaa’s first official visits and diplomatic negotiations

Al-Sharaa made his first visits abroad, starting with Saudi Arabia, where he went to Mecca for the Umrah pilgrimage in the company of his wife, Latifa al-Droubi, whose identity the world is discovering for the first time. He then travelled to Turkey and may visit France next week, as part of the international conference on Syria scheduled for February 13.

The main topics of discussion are the lifting of sanctions, the fight against the Islamic State, as well as the fate of northeastern Syria and the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces into the National Army.

For their part, the Egyptian and Tunisian heads of state, Sisi and Saied, are among the most feverish to support or congratulate the new government. Both seem to fear that the fall of Assad will spark new revolutionary impulses in their respective countries, which have also supplied the largest contingents of foreign Islamist fighters to Syria over the past decade – 6000 for Tunisia, 3000 for Egypt. One of the Egyptian ex-members of HTS was arrested in Syria on January 15 after calling on social networks for Egyptians to overthrow Sisi.

On the side of Western imperialism…

Negotiations with Russia continue unabated, with no indication of what Syria is demanding from Russia, or what the latter is proposing in order to maintain its Hmeimim (Latakia) airbase and Tartus naval base on Syrian territory. For the first time, there has been talk of handing Assad over to Syria, but also of financial compensation for rebuilding the country, whose ruin is largely attributable to Russian intervention since 2015. To date, the talks appear to have reached a dead end.

No big news from the United States. Donald Trump, busy taking chainsaw blows all around him, seems relatively uninterested in the Syrian question. From one week to the next, his statements on the potential withdrawal of 2,000 American troops from Syria change completely. We can only wait to see what Trump’s next whim will be…

Finally, while Turkey is doing everything to salvage its war against the Kurds in the north of the country, Israel is irrevocably pursuing its expansion in the south, claiming to want to hold out indefinitely or indefinitely, depending on the translations of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s statements.

Already, residents are testifying to the considerable impact the military occupation is having on the region’s agriculture and ecosystem, including southern Syria’s main water reserves, thousands of hectares of fields, vegetable gardens and fruit crops, not to mention over 10,000 beekeepers’ hives already threatened by climate change… Israel is a calamity from every point of view.

But now, demonstrations are being organized in Damascus and in the invaded province of Quneitra. On February 1, for the first time, an armed group calling itself the “Syrian Popular Resistance” fired on the Israeli army in the village of Turnejeh.

The Druze of Lebanon and Syria, a long history of insubordination

by | Feb 5, 2025 | Levant

The Druze are a religious community attached to a heterodox creed of Ismaili Shi’ite Islam, which originated in Egypt under the leadership of Imam Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad in the early 11th century. The Druze faith takes its name from the preacher Muhammad ad-Darazi, although some of his followers do not recognize Ad-Darazi and he was disowned by Hamza ibn Ali before being executed on the orders of the caliph Al-Hakim bi-amr Allah. The Druze prefer to define themselves as “Muwahideen” (Unitarians) or “Banu Ma’ruf” (Children of Maarouf), although the origin of this term remains uncertain.

The Druze religion, like Sufism, takes a philosophical and syncretic approach to faith, recognizing neither the rigid precepts nor the prophets of Islam. Although this belief spread to Cairo under the Fatimid caliphate of al-Hakim, who was deified by the Druze, it was soon persecuted by the rest of the Muslim community after al-Hakim’s death in 1021, and so the Druze were exiled to Bilad el-Cham (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine), particularly to Mount Lebanon and the Hauran. But it was around the beginning of the 19th century that the Druze community in Hauran gained strength, after a large part of the community had been expelled from Mount Lebanon by the Ottoman authorities. The Hauran mountain was then named jebel al-Druze.

Today, Suwayda governorate is home to the majority of the world’s Druze community, some 700,000 people. The Lebanese Druze are the second largest community, numbering 250,000. In Syria, several Druze settlements also exist in Jebel al-Summaq (Idlib, 25,000 people), Jebel al-Sheikh and al-Juwlan (Quneitra, 30,000 people) and Jaramana (Damascus suburbs, 50,000 people). Finally, outside Syria and Lebanon, the largest Druze communities are to be found in occupied Palestine (Galilee and Mount Karmel, 130,000), Venezuela (100,000), Jordan (20,000), North America (30,000), Colombia (3,000) and Australia (3,000).

The main Druze families and clans in the 19th century

The Druze community is structured along traditional clan lines, with large families exerting a dominant influence. Until the mid-18th century, Hauran (or Jabal Druze) was dominated by the Hamdan family, whose hegemony was challenged in the 1850s by Al-Atrash family. The conflict between the two families and their respective allies between 1856 and 1870 was finally settled by the intervention of the Ottoman authorities, who divided the region into four sub-districts, the largest of which was that of Al-Atrash family, comprising 18 villages out of the 62 in Hauran at the time.

Zuqan al-Atrash

Rebellion against Turkish-Ottoman authority…

 

In 1878, the semi-autonomy acquired by the Hauran was called into question by Ottoman military intervention, which sought to put an end to the conflicts between the Druze and their neighbors in the plain (now Daraa). The Ottoman authorities imposed a new form of governance under the leadership of Ibrahim al-Atrash, and the payment of taxes to the Druze community, particularly to peasants. Between 1887 and 1910, a series of conflicts ensued, first between the region’s peasants and Al-Atrash family, then between Ibrahim’s brothers – Shibli and Yahia – and the Ottoman authorities. In 1909, the revolt against the Ottomans led by their nephew Zuqan al-Atrash failed at the battle of Al-Kefr, and he was executed the following year. His son Sultan took over at the time of the great Arab revolt of 1918…

During the 1914-1918 war, Ottoman rule left Jabal Druze relatively undisturbed. Sultan al-Atrash forged links with the pan-Arab movements involved in the great Arab revolt of the Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and raised the Arab flag on the fortress of Salkhad, south of the Suwayda region, and on his house in Al-Qurayya. He sent a reinforcement of 1,000 fighters to Aqaba in 1917, then joined the revolt himself with 300 fighters at Bosra, before seizing Damascus on September 29, 1918. Sultan became a general in Emir Faisal’s army and Syria gained independence. This was short-lived, however, as Syria was occupied by the French in July 1920. Jabal Druze became one of the five states of the new French colony.

Sultan al-Atrash

Sultan al-Atrash

…then against French colonialism

 

Sultan al-Atrash first clashed with the French in 1922, when his host, Lebanese Shi’ite rebel leader Adham Khanjar, was arrested at his home in his absence. Sultan demanded his release, then attacked a French convoy believed to be carrying the prisoner. In retaliation for the attack, the French demolished his house and ordered his arrest, but Sultan took refuge in Jordan, from where he led raids against the French forces. Temporarily pardoned and allowed to return home, he led the Syrian revolt of 1925-1927, declaring revolution against the French occupiers. Initially victorious, the Great Syrian Revolt was finally defeated by the French army and Sultan was sentenced to death. He took refuge in Transjordan, before being pardoned again and invited to sign the Syrian Independence Treaty in 1937. He received a hero’s welcome in Syria, a reputation he retains to this day. When the treaty failed to secure Syria’s independence in May 1945, the Syrians once again revolted against the French occupiers, who sent in the army and killed around a thousand Syrians. In Hauran, the French army was defeated by the Druze under the command of Sultan al-Atrash, before the British intervention that put a definitive end to the French mandate on April 17, 1946.

Editor’s note: the commitment of the Al-Atrash family must be seen in the context of Arab conservatism and nationalism, which did not challenge traditional clan, patriarchal and authoritarian structures. However, their constant opposition since the 19th century to foreign imperialism and the abusive authority of central powers made them precursors in the anti-colonial struggles of the second third of the 20th century. Their struggle can also be seen as carrying within it the seeds of community struggles for autonomy and self-defence, which will be discussed in Suwayda in the recent period (years 2010-2020). Sultan al-Atrash is also known for his stance in favor of multiculturalism and secularism.

الدين لله، والوطن للجميع

Religion is for God, Homeland is for everyone

Resistance to Israeli colonialism

 

When the British transferred their domination of Palestine to Zionist settlers in Europe and America, and the latter began ethnically cleansing the Palestinians from December 18, 1947, Sultan al-Atrash called for the formation of the Arab Liberation Army of Palestine. Under the command of future Syrian president Adib Shishakli, this army entered Palestine from Syria on January 8, 1948, as part of the First Arab-Israeli War.

Kamal Jumblatt

Only a year apart, on May 1, 1949, Druze intellectual and political leader Kamal Jumblatt founded the Progressive Socialist Party, then he called for the first convention of Arab Socialist Parties in May 1951 and began to establish links with the Palestinian Left Resistance, embodied by the Fedayeen movement. Jumblatt then turned the PSP into an armed movement integrated into the Lebanese National Movement, a coalition of 12 left-wing parties and movements founded in 1969 to support the Palestine Liberation Organization, itself created five years earlier and then led by Yasser Arafat. Jumblatt is the leader of the Lebanese National Movement (LNM).

The entire period between 1952 and 1975 was characterized by growing sectarian tensions between secular left-wing movements – anti-imperialist and pro-Palestinian – and the pro-Western Christian Maronite elites, who dominated the Lebanese political landscape at the time. From 1970 onwards, these tensions were heightened by the significant increase in the number of Palestinian fighters in Lebanon, following their expulsion from Jordan, and leading to a considerable increase in the influence of Palestinian movements in the country. These tensions culminated in the massacres of Palestinian civilians by Christian Phalangists (Kataeb) at Ain el-Rummaneh on April 13, 1975 (30 dead) and at Karantina (between 1,000 and 1,500 dead), followed by the massacre of Christian civilians at Damour (150 to 580 dead) in January 1976.

Syrian President Hafez al-Assad – whose Ba’ath party had until then supported the Palestinian left and its allies – took up the cause of the Christian Falangists and proposed an agreement involving the reduction of Palestinian influence in Lebanon. The PLO refused, and in March 1976, Kamal Jumblatt went to Damascus to express his disagreement to Hafez al-Assad. The following month, the LNM and the PLO took control of 80% of Lebanon, but in June the Syrian army intervened in Lebanon. During the summer, the Christian militias who had been besieging the Palestinian camp of Tell al-Zaatar since the beginning of the year, massacred between 2,000 and 3,000 civilians with Syrian military support. At the end of a six-month confrontation with the PLO and the LNM, a temporary ceasefire was signed, establishing the long-term occupation of Lebanon by the Syrian army and leading to the gradual – then definitive ten years later (1987) – annihilation of the Palestinian Resistance in Lebanon.

On March 16, 1977, Kamal Jumblatt was assassinated by gunmen hired by Hafez al-Assad’s brother, Rifaat. Many left-wing personalities attended his funeral, and Yasser Arafat delivered a powerful eulogy for his ally and friend.

Excerpt from the film “Greetings to Kamal Jumblatt”, Maroun Bagdadi, 1977, 57 mm

Editor’s note: We are not here to idealize Kamal Jumblatt’s character, and we believe that leaders should never be heroes. However, we do not believe that Kamal Jumblatt is guilty of any crimes, nor that he has propagated feelings of hatred based on the ethnic or religious affiliation of his opponents, contrary to what has been conveyed by certain media affiliated to the Lebanese right. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that any armed movement has at one time or another been associated with or directly involved in the commission of crimes or acts of vengeance. This was notably the case with the Palestinian armed factions, and therefore their allies, as in Damour in January 1976. It’s also important to admit when a leader betrays the interests of his community, as in the case of Kamal Jumblatt’s son, Walid Jumblatt. His political choices following his father’s death and up to the present day are relatively dubious, and he does not seem to us to be worthy of his father’s political legacy.

Armed resistance to authoritarian centralism in Damascus

 

When the 2011 revolt against Bashar al-Assad broke out, Syria’s Druze joined the rest of the Syrian population in demonstrating in the streets of Suwayda and Jaramana, the Druze community district of Damascus.

And when the armed struggle took over from the peaceful demonstrations, Druze officer Khaldun Zein Ad-Din defected from the regime’s army on October 31, 2011. He publically declared his allegiance to the Free Syrian Army and created the “Sultan Basha al-Atrash” batallion, made up of 120 Druze fighters.

Khaldun Zein Ad-Din

Fadlallah Zein Ad-Din

He was joined by his brother Fadlallah Zein Ad-Din in July 2012. Denounced by informers, they are besieged and Khaldun is killed with 16 other of their companions in Tall al-Maseeh on January 13, 2013. His brother announced his death in a statement ten days later. The Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon organized a ceremony in their honor, and he became the symbol of the revolutionary and opposition movement in Suwayda. On March 21, 2013, his wife Amira Abu Bahsas publicly declared that she too would join her late husband’s battalion, becoming the first woman from Suwayda to join the Free Syrian Army.

During anti-regime demonstrations in Suwayda between 2023 and 2025, Khaldun Zein Ad-Din’s portrait is displayed in Dignity Square, where his parents Sami and Siham actively participated in the protests.

Amira Abu Bahsas

Another form of resistance to Assad’s dictatorship emerged in 2013 in Suwayda, following the forced recruitment of several dozen young men from the region. An influential sheikh in the community, Waheed al-Balous, refused to accept the community’s participation in the war against other Syrians and opposed forced recruitment. He founded the Men of Dignity Movement (“Rijal al-Karami”), which gained in popularity over the years and prevented the conscription of between 30,000 and 50,000 young men from Suwayda.

دم السوري على السوري حرام

A Syrian must not shed the blood of another Syrian

In 2015, Balous openly denounced the dictatorship, leading to his assassination in a double bomb attack on September 4, 2015. On the evening of his death, riots broke out in the region and the statue of Hafez al-Assad that had stood in Dignity Square was removed. It was never replaced. His brother Raafat, wounded in the attack, temporarily replaced him before giving up his position. Waheed al-Balous’s sons, Laith and Fahd, created a splinter group from Rijal al-Karami, the Sheikhs of Dignity (Sheikh al-Karami), which they intended to be politically more radical than their father’s movement. Despite frequent disagreements, the two movements continued to carry out joint actions, even as Rijal al-Karami drew closer to another major faction, the Forces of the Mountain (Quwwat al-Jabal). In December 2024, they joined the Southern Room for Military Operations, which also included other Druze factions and took part in the liberation of Damascus.

Waheed al-Balous

Raafat al-Balous

Laith al-Balous

Fahd al-Balous

Editor’s note: While here too we must refrain from idealizing one faction or another, we nevertheless consider that Rijal al-Karami and associated groups have, in recent years, embodied the Druze community’s imperative for self-defense and self-determination. Whether in the face of attempts by the regime’s army to impose itself by force or coercion, in the face of Islamist aggression or in the face of the predation of the gangs that have proliferated in the region, these factions have succeeded in protecting the civilian population and the general interest without committing exactions or abuses of power. Their leaders have generally answered the call of threatened communities and taken a clear stand against any outside force threatening community security. They also acted as protectors of popular demonstrations and revolts, before spontaneously joining the offensive against the regime in December 2024.

Suwayda at the heart of the revolutionary path from 2011 to 2025

 

Beyond the few emblematic examples of armed resistance to the authoritarian centralism of Damascus, civil society in Suwayda has never ceased to take a critical or hostile stance towards central power and the Assad dictatorship. Contrary to unfounded rumors that regularly portray the Druze as loyal to the regime, numerous examples demonstrate that the community has always succeeded in reconciling its tradition of resistance with a refusal to take sides in a conflict that very early on became confessionalized – with a very large Islamic religious component within the Free Syrian Army as early as 2012 – and which would have resulted in its annihilation.

Few remember that the people of Suwayda were involved in the 2011 uprising right from the start. As mentioned in our first article, the Suwayda Lawyers’ Guild organized one of the first public demonstrations in March 2011, and as elsewhere in Syria, the Jabal Druze took to the streets in the weeks that followed. To give just a few strong and symbolic examples, let’s recall that one of the main songs of the revolution is “Ya Heif!” (يا حيف – “What a Shame!”), composed and sung by Druze singer Samih Choukheir (Listen by clicking here).

Samih Choukheir

At the beginning of this text, we also mentioned the influence of the Al-Atrash family in the region. Sultan al-Astrash’s daughter, Muntaha al-Atrash, took an early stand against Ba’athist tyranny. In 1991, she publicly tore up a photo of Hafez al-Assad to denounce his involvement with the Coalition in the Iraq war. Saved from prison by her father’s reputation, she joined the Sawaseya Human Rights Organization, becoming its spokeswoman in 2010. At the start of the revolution, she visited rebel areas and publicly called on the Syrian people to join the revolution, before receiving death threats serious enough to convince her to stop appearing in public.

Her daughter Naila al-Atrash, a university drama teacher with close ties to the Syrian Communist Party, was regularly threatened by the regime for her activities, which were deemed subversive. Dismissed in 2001, placed under house arrest in 2008, she took part in the beginning of the 2011 revolt by organizing support groups for people displaced and affected by the conflict, before leaving Syria in 2012. To this day, Naila remains an active supporter of the liberation of Syrians.

Muntaha al-Atrash

Naila al-Atrash

Finally, since the assassination of Waheed al-Balous in September 2015, the resistance and revolt against the Assad regime has continued to take shape. It has taken the form of an armed resistance embodied by several popular militias, as mentioned above, but has also largely developed in civil society, with the multiplication of demonstrations and actions that have increased in intensity and regularity since 2020, also as a consequence of the explosion in prices and the cost of living.

To reread in detail the unfolding of these revolts, read our first article published in October 2023: “In Southern Syria, the uprising of Dignity has begun”.

It is also necessary to know more about the structure of Druze society to understand that the population is not necessarily subservient to the decisions of a political or spiritual leadership. In Suwayda, religious leadership is embodied by three sheikhs, the “Aql Sheikhs”: Hamoud Al-Henawi, Hikmat Al-Hajari and Youssef Jarboua. The political positions of these three sheikhs are neither identical nor immutable, and their relationship with the Assad regime has varied according to periods and events.

Following the assassination of Waheed al-Balous and the attack on Suwayda by the Islamic State in 2018, the dissensions between the three sheikhs became even more aggravated. Initially neutral or relatively loyal to the Assad regime, they began to become more critical, particularly sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, who took a clearer stance against the regime and gradually established himself as the charismatic leader of the community.

Hikmat al-Hajari

Hamoud al-Henawi

Youssef Jarboua

Editor’s note: The positions taken by the spiritual leadership are not binding on the Druze community, which is predominantly secular and does not follow its commandments as may be the case for other religious communities that accept that religion dictates social and political life. Regularly, Druze sheikhs have publicly declared that they support and follow the community’s choices. More recently, Hikmat al-Hajjari’s cautious yet firm stance on Ahmed al-Sharaa’s transitional government, and in particular on the disarmament of factions, has been much criticized by many people, often ignorant of or hostile to the ways of the Druze community, or even hostile to the Druze in general, out of nationalism or religious zeal. Within the community, his positions are also criticized by supporters of factional disarmament, who see it as the main cause of violence within society and seem to trust (a little too much) in the new Islamist central power not to (re)become a threat to the Druze minority…

The Druze, Israel and the Islamists

 

This last chapter is essential in view of recent events concerning the Druze communities in Syria and Palestine, and the controversies and rumors that have accompanied them. The two most persistent misconceptions concern the Druze’s supposed loyalty to the Assad regime on the one hand, and their supposed sympathy for Israel on the other. If we have invalidated the first theory in the preceding chapters, it seems to us that we need to add some more recent information than that concerning Kamal Jumblatt’s time to invalidate the second as well.

It should first be pointed out that the Druze communities of Palestine (Mount Carmel and Galilee) were integrated by the Israeli colony in 1948, in the wake of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians (Nakba). As such, the Palestinian Druze have Israeli citizenship and are subject to compulsory military conscription. Many of them have now accepted this assimilation to the point of supporting the Zionist project and its genocidal policy towards other Palestinians. Their spiritual leader Muafak Tarif is a perfect example of integrationism, cultivating a friendly relationship with the colonial administration and its representatives. He is also quite close to Benyamin Netanyahu.

Muafak Tarif et Benyamin Netanyahu

Location of Druze communities in the Levant

The other Druze community colonized by Israel is that of the Golan Heights, occupied during the Six-Day War in 1967 and officially annexed in 1981. Of the 130,000 Syrians living in the Golan before the invasion, only 25,000 Druze now live on the plateau, in five communes: Majdal Shams, Buq’ata, Mas’ade, Ein Kenya and al-Gager. However, the Druze of the Golan have never accepted assimilation, and almost 80% of them still refuse to take Israeli citizenship.

Israeli leaders persist in trying to win the sympathy of the Golan Druze and never miss an opportunity to claim that they support Zionism, but reality contradicts the propaganda. When, on July 27, 2024, Hezbollah fired a rocket at a soccer field in Majdal Shams, killing 12 children from the community, the opportunistic visits of Benyamin Netanyahu and Bezamel Smotrich to the site and to the funeral were refused by the residents, who booed and branded them murderers.

Finally, when in December 2024 the Israeli army crossed the 1967 border and invaded the Druze villages of Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh), Zionist as well as anti-Zionist (and campist) propaganda shared the same false information claiming that the residents of Hadar village were in favor of their annexation by Israel. This rumor was initiated by Nidal Hamade, a pro-Hezbollah Lebanese propagandist exiled in France, who posted on his X account a decontextualized video showing a Druze man declaring that he wanted Hadar annexed.

Yet on the same day, representatives of Hadar’s Druze community published a video containing a statement affirming their refusal to be occupied by Israel and denying the false accusations against the Druze.

Unfortunately, rumors often spread more widely than their denials…

Hadar residents’ statement, December 13, 2024, Al-Araby TV

For both sides, perpetuating this lie is useful: where Israel has an interest in legitimizing the occupation of Syria’s Arab lands by claiming that its inhabitants want it, the pro-Iranian camp has a clear advantage in keeping alive the myth that Syria’s minorities needed Assad and Hezbollah to protect them from Islamists, otherwise they would turn to Israel. This binarity of analysis feeds on the same campist and feudal logic of thought: “If you don’t place yourself under my protection, then you deserve to be oppressed by my enemy”. And for both sides, the Islamist scarecrow is used to justify the subjugation of civilian populations, insecurity and fear of barbarism (terror) being the colonial powers’ main resources for legitimizing their violations of the conventions and laws of war.

Assad, for his part, has never ceased to present himself as the protector of minorities, using Islamists as pawns to, on the one hand, disrupt the popular revolt against his regime, and, on the other, inflict terror among minorities when and where he needed to in support of his prophecy: “It’s either me, or chaos”. In the weeks leading up to the Islamic State’s bloody attack on Suwayda in July 2018 (258 dead and 36 hostages), Assad ostentatiously withdrew all his troops from the region. Then, after the attack, when the population criticized him for not having intervened immediately to block the road to the Islamic State, he responded that it was the fault of the Druze who refused to send their young men into the army. But worst of all, the Islamic State fighters had been transported by bus from Yarmouk (a Palestinian camp on the outskirts of Damascus) to the Suwayda desert a month before the attack as part of a surrender agreement. And, as if that weren’t enough, in November of the same year, a new agreement was signed with the Islamic State resistance pocket in the Yarmouk basin (on the border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights) for a new humanitarian evacuation to the desert in exchange for the release of the Druze hostages taken by the Islamic State after their attack on Suwayda. It should be noted that these two agreements between the regime and the EI were organized under the patronage of the Russians, who had at the same time made a commitment to Israel to keep any threat from Islamists, including Hezbollah, away from its border.

We discuss the attack on Suwayda by the Islamic State in more detail in our first article published in October 2023: “In Southern Syria, the uprising of Dignity has begun“

And to conclude: As Islamists have often been the useful idiots of imperialism on all sides, it should come as no surprise that the Druze of Suwayda are in no hurry to hand over their weapons to the new power in Damascus, since Ahmad al-Sharaa has been the representative of the two Islamist movements, DAESH and Jabhat Al-Nosra, which have violently attacked the Druze over the past decade. And that certainly doesn’t make them Israel’s allies, whatever supporters of Iran and Israel may think.

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices – Fajawat, January 24, 2025

by | Jan 25, 2025 | Chronicle

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE“

Security situation under the Military Operations Administration (HTS)

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has recorded 147 murders since the beginning of the year, as well as several kidnappings, including the writer and opponent Rasha Nasser al-Ali.

The HTS Military Operations Administration is continuing its security campaigns in the central and coastal regions of Syria, particularly in Homs, where its interventions have resulted in summary executions, violence against residents and dozens of arrests.

Demonstrations have been held in several towns to demand the release of some of the 9,000 people arrested by HTS since December 8, denouncing the lack of evidence justifying their continued detention and the fact that some of them are being held despite having signed “reconciliation” agreements.

Numerous voluntary reconciliation initiatives have been refused by HTS, on the pretext that the candidates present themselves without surrendering their weapons. The $100 fine imposed on those who present themselves without their weapon encourages candidates to buy weapons in order to be admitted to the reconciliation centers.

International relations and economic recovery

The transitional government’s main focus is diplomatic relations and economic development, its top priority being to secure the lifting of sanctions that continue to plague the country in exchange for a forced liberalization of the Syrian economy.

The Minister of the Economy continues to meet with Syrian businessmen who have grown rich under Assad’s regime, claiming that “private property is sacred” and their money will not be confiscated. At the same time, Foreign Minister Al-Shaibani went to the World Economic Forum in Davos to plead for Syria’s conversion to a market economy, affirming the 5 major axes of reform (energy, telecoms, transport, education and health) and announcing the privatization of oil, cotton and furniture production.

While Germany calls on Russia to withdraw from Syria, the 49-year contract signed in 2019 between Syria and the Russian company Stroytransgaz for the management of the port of Tartous has been broken, allowing most taxes on incoming goods to be reduced by 60%. At the same time, Syrian, Turkish, Qatari and Jordanian airlines are organizing the resumption of flights between Damascus, Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula and Europe. The latter has announced the dispatch of 235 million euros in humanitarian aid.

With 195,200 refugees already back in Syria, the pressure on the economy is mounting. While overall food prices have fallen slightly, the price of a pack of bread has risen from 400 to 4,000 Syrian pounds, and the country’s need for additional bakeries is estimated at 160 on top of the existing 250. Currently, 5,000 tons of bread are produced every day.

Political and social transition, Investigating Assad’s crimes

While Al-Sharaa met with International Court of Justice prosecutor Karim Khan and the family of American journalist Austin Tice, missing since 2012, the families of the other 130,000 missing from the Assad regime continue to be ignored by the transitional government. The Hague-based International Commission for Missing Persons has counted 66 mass graves across the country, the main one at Al-Qutayfah (a former Russian military base) believed to contain nearly 100,000 bodies belonging to detainees executed at Saydnaya prison.

Regarding its efforts to expose Assad’s crimes, HTS preferred to communicate widely on the discovery and destruction of 100 million captagon pills and 15 tons of hashish seized from several sites previously under the control of the 4th Division of Bashar al-Assad’s brother, Maher.

Bashar al-Assad was also the target of a second international arrest warrant issued by the French justice system for the bombing of Deraa in 2017, following the one issued in 2023 for the chemical attacks in Adra, Douma and Eastern Ghouta in 2013. Will France ask Russia to hand over Bashar?

Conflict with the North-East Autonomous Administration

Tension between HTS and the North-Eastern Autonomous Administration (AANES) has escalated despite ongoing talks. After rejecting SDF commander Mazloum Abdi’s demand to be allowed to form a fully-fledged “bloc” within the new Syrian army and to return access to part of the region’s oil resources, Defense Minister Abu Qasra declared “we don’t want oil, we want [control over] institutions and borders” before declaring himself “ready to use force”. HTS has begun sending troops to Deir Ezzor, Raqqa and near the Tishrin dam, where fighting between the SDF and pro-Turkish militias continues. A total of 474 people have been killed in this confrontation since December 12, including 51 civilians, 348 pro-Turkish militiamen and 75 members of the SDF and affiliated groups.

In the ongoing discussions, the main challenges and points of dispute concern maintaining the fight against pouches of the Islamic State, which has regained strength, but also the management and evacuation of the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps where 35,000 members and families of the Islamic State are still being held, including nearly 15,000 fighters. Following negotiations with the US command, France and the Iraqi government, AANES has released 150 Islamic State families held in Al-Hol and announced the voluntary return of a further 66 families to their homes in Syria, although it is not known whether HTS is part of this agreement. Iraq plans to repatriate 10,000 of its citizens under the same agreements.

Israeli colonization in the south-west

In the south of the country, Israel continues to advance into Syrian territory unhindered by anyone or anything, stealing an area of 235 square kilometers from Syria. After entering two new localities, the Israeli army set up 7 new checkpoints and military barracks, thus persisting with its “buffer zone” project, enabling it to exercise military control over 15 to 60 kilometers downstream from its previous border.

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices – Fajawat, January 17, 2025

by | Jan 17, 2025 | Chronicle

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE“

We can’t talk about Syria without mentioning Palestine. At a time when Israel is reluctantly accepting a ceasefire in Gaza, having repeatedly violated the one in effect in Lebanon, it seems that its colonial ambitions have simply shifted the front line towards Jenin in the West Bank and Quneitra in Syria.

In our last chronicles, we mentioned the complicit silence of Syria’s interim president al-Sharaa, but rather than complicity, it would seem more accurate to speak of a “non-hostile stance”: the transitional government and Syrian society simply cannot assume a new war with Israel and its allies. Especially after Israel destroyed 80% of Syria’s military arsenal in its massive bombardment campaign (over 600 rockets) of the country’s military sites in the hours following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

But Israel shows no signs of stopping there. Since last week, Israeli tanks have invaded seven new Syrian villages and, after boasting of stealing military armaments in Syria, Israel bombed a convoy of the new Syrian authorities for the first time, killing two HTS security personnel and the mukhtar (mayor) of the village of Deir al-Bustan, where they had come to collect weapons in circulation as part of the country’s demilitarization operations. For the first time, the HTS foreign minister condemned Israeli aggression and called on the international community to put an end to Israel’s violations. But who can and will stop Israel?

Meanwhile, HTS brought together the Palestinian factions in Syria (PFLP-GC, Fatah-Intifada, Al-Sa’iqa, Jerusalem Brigade, Free Palestine Movement and Palestine Democratic Movement), in the presence of Hamas, to negotiate the terms of their surrender. HTS arrested several of their members on charges of committing crimes alongside the Assad regime, while their main leaders fled to Lebanon. At the same time, the Palestinian embassy in Damascus and most Palestinian civil and charitable organizations in Syria have been able to continue or resume their activities. As this chronicle is being finalized, a spontaneous popular demonstration against the Israeli invasion and in solidarity with Gaza is underway in Damascus, something that has never happened in fifty years under the Assad regime. For news on the Palestinians in Syria, visit  https://www.actionpal.org.uk/

With regard to the security situation in Syria under HTS control, it has to be said that numerous crimes against civilians are being committed, making it impossible to distinguish between individual acts of vengeance, the cleansing of former Assad regime elements and ordinary crime, which continues to develop against a harsh economic backdrop. In particular, drug trafficking to Jordan has resumed, with Jordan bombing several houses south of Suwayda on January 15 under the pretext of targeting drug traffickers.

The military command of the transitional government launched a new campaign of arrests in the Homs region, where six Alawite civilians were executed and their homes burnt down on January 14 by unidentified individuals. Violence and demonstrations also continued in the coastal region of Latakia, where the population accused HTS of committing crimes against civilians and demanded the expulsion of foreign fighters, notably those from the Islamic Party of Turkistan. In Jableh on January 14, a pro-Assad armed group kidnapped seven HTS members and published a video threatening to execute them, before being intercepted and their hostages released. HTS also arrested a local figure, leading to further demonstrations in Jableh on Friday. Finally, HTS is accused of violently searching the premises of the Kurdish “People’s House” in Zour Ava, Damascus, but no arrests were reported.

While the conflict between the pro-Turkish forces of the SNA and the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the SDF-YPG continues unabated at the Tishrin dam between Manbij and Kobane, horrifying news of crimes committed by SNA-affiliated militias, notably the Suleiman Shah (“Al-Amshat”) and Hamza Division (“Al-Hamzat”) groups, continues to be transmitted daily to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Among other crimes and petty theft, these groups are accused of robbery and looting, as well as kidnapping for ransom in the Afrin, Aleppo and Manbij regions, for sums ranging from $850 to $2,000 per hostage. The Suleiman Shah group is also responsible for recruiting hundreds of fighters sent to Niger, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh to defend Turkey’s interests in exchange for a pitiful monthly pay of 1500 Turkish Liras.

On the political front, the transition process continues slowly, with signs as contradictory as ever. While freedom of expression and assembly is a reality, with many public demonstrations able to take place without hindrance, all Syrians’ senses remain on alert. Posters advocating male/female segregation and condemning blasphemy, for example, have been seen plastered on transport in Homs and Damascus, while a famous actor, Abdel Men’am Amayri, was accused of blasphemy and violently beaten in the street by HTS men. While these elements are not sufficient to draw hasty conclusions on the future evolution of Syrian society, they are nevertheless indications that all Syrians should consider serious enough to keep a close eye on Al-Sharaa and HTS during the crucial three-month period leading up to the opening of the National Transition Conference.

In an interview, al-Sharaa notably uttered words that don’t bode well, claiming that for HTS the revolution was accomplished and that “a revolutionary state of mind can overthrow a regime but cannot build a state”, betraying his desire to retain full control over the country’s political transformation, without necessarily letting pluralism get in the way of his ambitions. The Syrian revolution of 2011 seems to him to be part of a frivolous past that now needs to be left behind, as he never took part in the Syrian demonstrations at the time, too busy fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq…