Four months after Assad’s fall, the Military Operations Command of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham sent one of its envoys to the predominantly Druze province of Suwayda. Mustafa al-Bakour, until then an obscure official of the Syrian Salvation Government in the Harem district of Idlib, arrived in Suwayda on January 6, 2025, and was tasked with governing the province. In the absence of a democratically elected parliament or provincial council, he has spent the last eighteen months governing Suwayda on Damascus’ behalf: erasing the Central Authority’s fingerprints from two waves of sectarian violence, and after the July 2025 massacres, overseeing a systematic campaign to renovate, repaint, and repopulate the very crime scenes his government had helped create.

النسخة العربية : https://interstices-fajawat.org/ar/2026/08/mustafa-al-bakour-fi-alsuwayda-tathir-erqi-gheir-moalan/

VERSION FRANCAISE : https://interstices-fajawat.org/fr/2026/08/mustafa-al-bakour-a-suwayda-un-nettoyage-ethnique-qui-ne-dit-pas-son-nom/

The career of Ahmad al-Sharaa, aka Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, raises questions and fascinations, and since he seized power by force, many would like to see him as a providential man, a repentant jihadist who has become a pragmatic statesman. Reexamining his career through the prism of the power struggles and relationships that shaped the Syrian civil war opens up the possibility of another, less mythological view of the man.

Jabhat al-Nusra, a product of US detention camps

Abu Muhammad al-Jolani began his career at Camp Bucca, the detention facility (and incubator) for jihadists established by the US Army in 2003 near the port of Umm Qasr in Iraq. While he was just a young, inexperienced militant, possibly recruited in Damascus by the preacher Mahmoud al-Aghasi (Abu al-Qaqaa), he is believed to have been held in this prison between May 2005 and April 2010 alongside Abd al Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli (Abu Ali al-Anbari), a Salafist ideologue close to the founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and favored by the organization's leadership as his successor. As such, Al-Anbari was what could be called a “leader maker.” While the circumstances and reasons for Al-Jolani's capture in Mosul remain unclear, it was behind bars—and through Al-Anbari—that he became someone of importance within the international jihad ecosystem. It should be noted that another of Al-Jolani's fellow prisoners was then knighted by Al-Anbari: former Iraqi military intelligence officer Fadel Ahmed al-Hiyali (Abu Muslim al-Turkmani / Abu Mutaz al-Qurayshi).

The latter became his accomplice and together they allegedly devised a plan to set up the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, a project that Al-Hiyali submitted for approval to the emir of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, upon his release from prison in 2010. Consequently, immediately after his release on March 13, 2011 (when the Syrian popular uprising had just broken out), Al-Jolani was doubly endorsed by Ayman Al-Zawahiri—Bin Laden's deputy who became his successor three months later—and by Al-Baghdadi, to go and implement the Al-Qaeda branch in Syria. With a monthly budget of $60,000, Al-Jolani crossed the Syrian border into Hasakeh with six companions in July 2011, before meeting with several Salafist leaders who had been conveniently released from prison by Assad in the preceding weeks. Finally, after making its debut with a few bomb attacks on Syrian intelligence buildings in Damascus during the winter, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda was finally born on January 23, 2012, under the name Jabhat Nusrat Ahl al-Sham, or Al-Nusra Front. This is what you might call an operational project.

Assad and the Islamization of the Syrian rebellion

One might wonder about this surprising leniency on the part of the American and Syrian authorities, which led to the release without prosecution of dozens of Islamist leaders at the dawn of the Syrian uprising, on the pretext that their intelligence services were unable to identify them or pin any serious crime on them. Apart from Al-Jolani, those lucky ones include his mentor Abu Ali al-Anbari and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself, as well as Abu Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, Zahran Alloush, Ahmed Isa al-Sheikh, Abu Khaled al-Suri, Abu Musab al-Suri, Hassan Abboud, Abu Jaber al-Sheikh, Abu Yahia al-Hamwi, Amer al-Absi Abu Atheer, Abu Muhannad al-Suwaydani, and Abu Ayman al-Iraqi. It is important to name them because, in the year following their release, they all became leaders of the most radical Salafist groups involved in the Syrian civil war, but also the fiercest competitors within the regional jihadist network. Let us add—and this is what will be of particular interest to us later on—that they are also the main architects of the fragmentation of the Syrian rebel forces, which was achieved through the radical purge of its most secularist and progressive components. At the head of this counter-revolutionary movement were Al-Jolani's Al-Nusra Front, Hassan Abboud's Ahrar al-Sham, Zahran Alloush's Jaysh al-Islam, Ahmed Isa al-Sheikh’s Suqour al-Sham and all the groups affiliated with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Islamic State.

The empowerment of Jabhat al-Nusra

Just a few months after establishing Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Jolani was already beginning to break away from his parent organization, prompting Al-Baghdadi to send his former mentor Al-Anbari to keep an eye on things. Al-Anbari exchanged several letters with the emir of Mosul to share his observations, and in one of them, his description of Al-Jolani is damning: "He is a sneaky person with two faces. He loves himself and does not care about the religion of his soldiers. He is willing to sacrifice their blood just so he is mentioned in the media. He flies with joy like a child when his name is mentioned on TV channels." In 2013, the split between the Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State was complete, while Al-Jolani maintained a tactical cooperation with the seven main Syrian Salafist organizations grouped within the Islamic Front (Ahrar al-Sham, Suqour al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, Liwa al-Tawhid, Liwa al-Haqq, Ansar al-Sham, and the Kurdish Islamic Front), despite their differences over the relationship to be maintained with Turkey. It was this last point of disagreement that led part of the leadership of Ahrar al-Sham, at the time Jabhat al-Nusra's main rival, to defect and align itself with Jabhat al-Nusra between 2014 and 2015. This was particularly the case for Abu Jaber al-Sheikh, whom we will discuss further below. At the same time, Al-Jolani thoroughly crushed the driving forces of the Syrian revolution, starting with the Syrian Revolutionary Front, the Hazm Movement, and the 13th Division of the Free Syrian Army, gradually strengthening his hegemonic position within the armed opposition to the Assad regime.

Foreign intervention, localization, and rebranding

The year 2015 marked a turning point. The Islamic State expanded rapidly on the fertile ground of the combined counterrevolutionary actions of the Assad regime and of Jabhat al-Nusra, which enabled it to seize the province of Idlib and the Palestinian camp of Yarmouk on the outskirts of the capital that same year. This second victory was also the result of a temporary tactical alliance with the Islamic State, the strategic implications of which remain unclear to this day, unless we consider that it was mainly a matter of removing the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front (already in decline) from the front line with the regime's forces. It should also be noted that prior to the Islamic State's takeover of the camp, Jabhat al-Nusra had prepared the ground by methodically assassinating nearly fifteen Palestinian community leaders and civil society activists. But the pivotal event that year was the Russian military intervention in the fall, which would allow Assad to recapture Aleppo and push Al-Jolani to adopt a whole new strategy to keep Idlib in the face of the rapidly deteriorating situation. It should be noted that at the time, one of the main threats to Jabhat al-Nusra was the potential cooperation between the United States and Russia to eradicate it, as would soon show the memorandum of understanding the two powers signed on October 20, 2015, in the name of fighting ISIS. It was therefore necessary to prove one's credentials in order to benefit from the support of states allied to the United States, in particular by rallying rebel groups that had hitherto been reluctant to associate themselves with an organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda and therefore with international jihad. Thus, Jabhat al-Nusra reconciled with Ahrar al-Sham to seize control of Idlib, forming an alliance backed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, before officially dissociating from Al-Qaeda and rebranding itself as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham on July 28, 2016. The change was to be accompanied by a merger with Ahrar al-Sham, but Al-Jolani's proposal to this effect was rejected.  Everything comes in its own time.

It was from this moment, coinciding with the launch of the Astana talks initiated by Russia and the Turkish Euphrates Shield offensive (August 2016–March 2017) leading to the occupation of northern Syria by a coalition of rebel forces under Turkish leadership, that Al-Jolani began to claim allegiance to the Syrian revolution and to offer guarantees of “deradicalization” allowing him to navigate between the various foreign powers involved in the civil war through their numerous proxies. The opposition in exile, embodied by the Syrian National Coalition and the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), was funded by the United States to the tune of tens of millions of dollars and would give rise a few months later to the Syrian National Army (SNA), an alliance of 28 factions, 21 of which were supported and armed by the United States via a joint operations room based in Azaz and controlled by Turkey. Although the historical rivals of Jabhat al-Nusra, aka Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, were now included in the Turkish-American project, Al-Qaeda's controversial heir did not yet seem quite ready to embody the “Syrian revolution” as defined and specified by the Coalition. The split with Al-Qaeda was still too recent to be credible in the eyes of most Syrian rebels, especially given that it was carried out with the approval of several prominent Al-Qaeda figures, namely Ahmed Hassan Abu al-Khayr, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, and Abu Qatada al-Falastini. Some sources claim that even Ayman al-Zawahiri himself endorsed this tactical choice.

The hand of Ankara, the elbow of Astana, and the shoulder of Washington

In any case, Al-Jolani methodically placed his pawns on the chessboard, with the aim of becoming the hegemonic leader of a Syrian rebellion in which he had to neutralize both the most uncontrollable elements on his right flank, namely the takfirists without lasting allegiance, and the more moderate factions on his left flank. While the former tended to cluster around Jabhat al-Nusra / Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, the latter had gradually moved closer to Ahrar al-Sham, whose leader Abu Jaber al-Sheikh had just created Jaysh al-Ahrar in December 2016 by incorporating sixteen local factions not yet affiliated with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. All that remained was to merge the two, which was almost entirely accomplished just one month later with the creation on January 28, 2017, of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose command was entrusted to this same Abu Jaber al-Sheikh. This appointment of a supposed adversary to lead his own troops, as well as the merge of Ahrar al-Sham into a short-lived entity that lasted merely a month (Jaysh al-Ahrar), strongly suggests that Al-Jolani had reached a prior agreement with Al-Sheikh. The question that remains unanswered is: how long had this been brewing? What is certain is that the reluctant ones of Ahrar al-Sham were subsequently rendered powerless during the summer, when HTS imposed its armed sections in all the localities where the group was still established and its remnants were forced to cede the border crossings with Turkey that had been under their control until then, including that of Bab al-Hawa, which for years served as a crossing point for Salafist fighters coming from Europe with Turkish backing. Finally, in the fall of 2017, more than 30 Salafist hardliners more or less officially affiliated with HTS were assassinated, or arrested by HTS, while Al-Sheikh ceded his position to Al-Jolani and took over as head of the Shura Council, the advisory body that traditionally surrounds the caliph. Al-Sheikh was known for being a supporter of “popular jihad” a form of Islamist populism that prioritizes the support of the people over the establishment of a caliphate (Islamic State). It should be noted that Al-Jolani subsequently established the Syrian Salvation Government to supplant the Syrian Interim Government supported by his competitors (and until then by the United States), before completing the crushing of the latter between 2018 and 2019. By early 2019, the HTS government controlled the entire province and was therefore able to begin playing politics. It finally seemed ready to rule with the approval of the Coalition.

Even though the United States and Turkey may have disagreed on strategy, particularly regarding the management of northeastern Syria and the attitude to adopt towards ISIS and the YPG/SDF, they nevertheless constitute the two cornerstones of the International Coalition in Syria and, as such, must be considered allies on the Syrian issue. When the Coalition ended its intervention in 2019 and the United States withdrew its support for the SDF, Turkey certainly had more freedom to act, but its actions continued to be negotiated with Washington. After promoting—intentionally or unintentionally, only the future will tell for sure when the archives are declassified—the emergence of a multitude of Salafist groups contributing to the fragmentation of the Syrian rebellion between 2011 and 2015, the Coalition was now steering its gradual deradicalization. This development appears to be the culmination of Turkey's takeover of HTS. Throughout the twelve meetings with Russia and Iran in Astana and Sochi between 2015 and 2021, Turkey actively worked to expand its influence and military presence in Syria, by invading the entire area northwest of Aleppo between 2016 and 2018, then by establishing de-escalation zones and a buffer zone in Idlib. The Turkish military presence in Idlib—legitimized by the defense of its 12 observation posts, which were gradually surrounded by regime forces between December 2019 and February 2020—was therefore quickly “imposed” on Al-Jolani.

Turkish forces deployed at this fateful moment to form a protective belt around the rebel forces, which were still insufficiently unified and therefore too vulnerable to offensives by the regime and the Russians. The name of the Turkish operation, “Spring Shield,” is very significant in this regard, and marks a major turning point that allowed the Idlib pocket to hold out and HTS to definitively establish its dominance over the region. This Turkish patronage, accompanied by funding for major reconstruction and development projects and the establishment of civil institutions, enabled the beylerbey Al-Jolani to calmly organize the administrative takeover of the province, thereby setting up a rudimentary state apparatus and gaining access to the threshold of power in the spring of 2023. In May of that year, he therefore publicly announced his intention to retake Aleppo, describing the city as the gateway to Damascus.

The red carpet to Damascus

On December 8, 2024, a broad alliance of rebel groups led by HTS seized power by force of arms and placed its leader at its head. This is what is known as a coup d'état. The day before, the final act of the Astana talks took place in Doha, Qatar, in the presence of five Arab countries and those presented as the three great enemies: Turkey, Russia, and Iran. Unsurprisingly, they agreed on a cessation of hostilities, coinciding with a halt to Russian bombing, as well as a total withdrawal of Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps fighters, but also of all the regime's armed forces, which, as we know, have massively thrown down their uniforms before heading back home. During the night, the Assad clan flew out along with the regime's chief negotiator in Astana, Bashar Jaafari, while sunni Prime Minister Muhammad Ghazi al-Jalali obtained a guarantee of amnesty. Before 4:30 a.m. on December 8, when the last flight departing from Damascus airport disappeared from radar just before reaching the Russian air base in Hmeimim (Tartus), more than fifty regime officers had vanished. In the evening, the Kremlin announced that Assad had taken refuge in Moscow with his family and that the matter had been settled. Thus, an escorted exit route was discreetly negotiated between the parties to the conflict with Russian mediation, like when HTS and Islamic State fighters were evacuated from Yarmouk by bus by the regime in spring 2018. Same actors, same methods.

Four days later, the head of Turkish intelligence (MIT) İbrahim Kalın was the first foreign delegate to visit Damascus where he prayed at the Umayyad Mosque and met Al-Jolani, followed ten days later by his predecessor (2010-2023) and current Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan. Al-Jolani and his patron were shown together drinking tea on the terraces of Mount Qasioun, which had been off-limits to the Syrian people since the 2011 uprising. The message could not have been clearer: if HTS's path to Damascus was not blood-stained, it was because a red carpet had been rolled out beforehand by Erdogan's agents with the consent of the other imperialist powers, including Iran. This is what Donald Trump would call a “good deal.” Indeed, the US president was very transparent about it during his first press conference since his reelection, on December 16, 2024: "Turkey's the one behind it. He's [Erdogan] a very smart guy, they've wanted it for thousands of years, and he got it, and those people that went in are controlled by Turkey, and that's OK, it's another way to fight [...] Nobody knows what the final outcome is gonna be in the region. Nobody knows who will rule in the end. I believe it is Turkey. Turkey is very smart, he is a very smart guy and he’s very tough. Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost.”

All these undisputed facts lend credence to the claim that Al-Jolani and his companions are long-standing partners of Turkish intelligence, even though there is no evidence to suggest that this link predates the creation of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in 2015. The only existing source is the exiled Turkish journalist Abdullah Bozkurt, who claims that Anas Khattab has been linked to MIT since the beginning of the civil war. It is noteworthy that this journalist has been the target of several threats, attacks, and legal proceedings by the Turkish state for this reason, which has also pressured the Swedish government to shut down his research center Nordic Monitor, to no avail. With the necessary hindsight and without giving in to conspiracy theories, we are still entitled to consider that Al-Nusra and what it spawned after it are in fact the fruitful result of the Coalition's strategies in the region. This seems to have been confirmed by the former Commander-in-Chief of US forces in Iraq and then Director of the CIA, David Petraeus, when he warmly praised Al-Jolani's career with these words on September 22, 2025: "Your vision is powerful and clear. Your demeanor is very impressive as well ...We obviously hope for your success, Inshallah, because at the end of the day, your success is our success.” This surreal scene took place at the Concordia Annual Summit, a conservative forum that has been held annually since 2011 with the aim of “Building Partnerships Against Extremism” (sic). In a carefully orchestrated staging in which Petraeus interviewed Al-Jolani, the latter was cordially invited to deploy his “post-jihadist” seduction game on the eve of his historic speech at the United Nations. The enthusiasm of a bridgehead of Western imperialism for the bloody achievements of a Salafist warlord on the list of “specially designated global terrorists” may seem surprising, and the lack of resonance that his statement had in the international press is up to par with the leniency of the international community in the face of Donald Trump's destructive madness. But that is undoubtedly another matter. To understand the unexpected nature of his praise, it should be noted that David Petraeus is known for having been the architect of the counterinsurgency strategies implemented in Mosul in the first year of the war. His fieldwork led him to revive the teachings of David Galula, a French army officer and torturer in Algeria who, in 1962, wrote the seminal work on psychological warfare, ‘Counterinsurgency: Theory and Practice’. Petraeus even wrote the preface to its 2008 French reissue, after publishing his own ‘Counterinsurgency Field Manual’ (FM 3-24) and even as the scandal of the abuse inflicted by the US Army on prisoners at Abu Ghraib had just placed the practices of the US Psychological Operations Teams (PsyOps) on the same level as the atrocities committed by their enemies, each thus becoming the other's terrorist. What we must remember is that Petraeus is the man who “unwittingly” arrested the bomber Al-Jolani in Mosul, before offering him a stay in the jihadist breeding ground of Camp Bucca.

“Ahmad Al-Jolani,” or the success of counterinsurgency

But what success is Petraeus talking about? To answer this question, we need to look at how Al-Jolani has been portrayed by experts and journalists since he took power. Driven by a kind of collective fascination with his character, many analysts seem to agree that the new “interim president” has become “deradicalized”—a term borrowed from the jargon of counterterrorism—over the past decade, and that this process has been the result of a gradual realization of the futility of his previous actions. Reading their comments, it is easy to be convinced that Al-Jolani, the jihadist turned statesman, is a kind of self-made man, a success story promoted in particular by the states that seem to have sponsored him since 2013. But more than just personal self-examination, we are led to believe that this individual process was accompanied as well by a collective realization on the part of his early companions, notably Anas Hasan Khattab (nom de guerre: Abu Ahmad Hudoud), Asaad al-Shaibani (Abu Ammar al-Shami or Zaid al-Attar) and Abd al-Rahim Attoun (Abu Abdallah al-Shami).

Once “most wanted terrorists,” they all would have transformed themselves into skilled strategists and can now be considered pragmatic leaders, their day-to-day management activities in Idlib having suddenly enlightened them to the need to demonstrate Sunni national populism rather than dogmatic Salafist intransigence. Experts cite the writings of renowned Islamologist Olivier Roy on political Islam to explain to us—and no doubt to reassure themselves and the rest of the world who was already comparing Syria to Afghanistan—that radical Islam is doomed to moderation when it finds itself in a position of having to run a state. The media were also quick to ask the rhetorical question, “Has Ahmad Al-Sharaa ceased to be a jihadist?”, even though no one seems to know anything about the man’s biography.

It should be noted that Al-Jolani's true identity was only revealed in the mainstream press after December 5, 2024, following the publication on the HTS Telegram channel of a message congratulating the people of Hama on their liberation and signed with his name, which was picked up by Reuters and the Saudi channel Al-Arabiya. Prior to that, only one TV interview given in February 2021 to journalist Martin Smith for the American PBS program Frontline had publicly mentioned his real identity. The previous TV interview, given eight years earlier to Al-Jazeera journalist Tayseer Allouni, had revealed neither his identity nor his face. It came at just the right moment, as the Islamic State—in rapid ascendance—was attracting hundreds of defectors from Jabhat al-Nusra, forcing Al-Jolani to find new strings to his bow. Like Bin Laden before him, the warlord was able to count on the Qatari channel—and its sympathetic journalist—to offer him a platform. Appearing from behind, he spoke of his rejection of the Geneva talks initiated by the United Nations, arguing that no one had “authorized its participants to represent the people” (sic), and sent a signal to Saudi Arabia to reevaluate its investment in the Syrian conflict.

Between the two interviews, Al-Jolani finally revealed his face during the announcement of the creation of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham on July 28, 2016, in which he appeared alongside ideologue Abd al-Rahim Attoun and Ahmad Salama Mabruk (Abu Faraj al-Masri), one of Al-Qaeda's most aggressive leaders and very close to Ayman al-Zawahiri and his brother Mohammed al-Zawahiri. It should be noted that, as a key figure in Al-Qaeda, Abu Faraj al-Masri's tactical expertise was undoubtedly crucial in the context of such a major reorganization of Jabhat al-Nusra, and his presence symbolized Jabhat Fatah al-Sham's continuing links with the wider Al-Qaeda network, even as the group sought to give assurances of moderation by distancing itself from the official structure of its parent organization. This undeniably reveals a highly controlled communication plan, accompanying a long-term reactionary or counter-revolutionary strategy, in which each public appearance consists of gaining support and backing by offering assurances of good faith to the international community without losing the support of followers and fighters. But these appeals are primarily aimed at states, not other components of the Syrian rebellion. This, at least, is how we should understand Abu Muhammad al-Jolani's fleeting appearances at key moments in the evolution of the political project he was part of, his gradual emergence from the shadows corresponding to the gradual normalization of his organization and its official recognition, followed by the confirmation of his candidacy to succeed Bashar al-Assad. And this project had already begun in December 2013, just eight months after his break with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, aka the Islamic State. Surprisingly quick timing.

If a jihadist is not dead, it means he can still be useful

Abu Faraj al-Masri, after playing his role as Al-Qaeda's guarantor during the creation of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, was killed by a US drone strike three months later, on October 3, 2016, in the heart of the Turkistani Salafist stronghold of Jisr al-Shughour (Idlib). This very timely death echoes the assassinations of more than a dozen leaders representing the radical wing of HTS in the fall of 2017 and the more sensational assassination of one of Al-Jolani's six first companions, Abu Maria Al-Qahtani, on April 4, 2024. These Al-Nusra veterans, all in conflict with Al-Jolani due to the gradual transformation of their movement under the influence of the major imperialist powers—notably Turkey—were in fact swept away one by one in the whirlwind of highly targeted and precise drone strikes and bombings that effectively rid Al-Jolani of all potential obstacles to his hegemonic conquest of power. The question that should have been legitimately asked at the time was: Why did Al-Jolani survive two decades of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism—two terms that often mean the same thing—carried out jointly by the NATO coalition and the RSII coalition?

Above all, why has the unanimous and almost obsessive focus on ISIS been the subject of so little critical analysis and suspicion on the part of experts and journalists of all stripes, while Jabhat al-Nusra and its ‘turkistani’ mercenaries were gaining significant leverage without being seriously targeted? All parties to the conflict, including the Assad regime and its Iranian ally, have yet legitimized their violence by claiming to be fighting Islamist terrorism, even though they have either financed or exploited Salafist groups to turn the chaos in Syria to their advantage, often in highly fluctuating ways and on a very local scale. If the Syrian civil war is so complex, even impossible to understand, it is because no binary analysis is valid, and any attempt to identify clear alliances or converging interests between two sides on a national or regional scale is doomed to failure. Thus, two parties to the conflict such as Russia and the United States have been able to find points of agreement in sharing the sky above the desert to bomb ISIS or in protecting the border to Jordan and Israel from Iranian militias, while fighting each other through their proxies in the north, even though Russia was US-designated evil Bashar al-Assad's main supporter. At the same time, Russia intensively bombed Turkey's proxies while conducting joint patrols with the Turkish army along the M4 highway between Saraqib and Jisr al-Shughour. Finally, following the same opportunistic logic which is far removed from any ethical or partisan considerations, the Gulf States, Turkey, Jordan, and the United States have cooperated in the four-year Timber Sycamore program aimed at arming and training more than 50 Syrian rebel groups—including the most extremist ones as well as factions fighting each other—while keeping many of their leaders on terrorism watch lists. It should be noted that this program, endorsed by Barack Obama following active lobbying by King Abdullah II of Jordan and Benjamin Netanyahu, was initiated in 2012 by above mentioned CIA Director David Petraeus. While it is true that the weapons supplied easily fell into the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra, as Trump himself admitted in July 2017, it remains difficult to assert that the group or its successors received direct support, although it was claimed by the Kurdish media outlet ANF News in January 2018 based on the confessions of two Turkish MIT agents captured by Kurdish forces a year earlier.

Why, then, was the undisputed leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, who led Al-Qaeda's offshoot for thirteen long years while all of Al-Zawahiri and Al-Baghdadi's lieutenants were assassinated one after the other by surgical strikes carried out in the heart of rebel areas, spared? Why has this mysterious jihadist, with a $10 million bounty on his head, been consistently—but covertly—supported by US allies for at least ten years? Why, finally, is this uncompromising warlord, who has thoroughly wiped out all the rebel groups most in tune with the values of the Syrian revolution, suddenly being presented as the hero of that revolution, while being supported by the most reactionary and sectarian segments of Syrian society? The answer seems fairly obvious: Abu Muhammad al-Jolani is much more of an object than a subject. He is not the master of his own destiny, as his supporters would like him to be. He is merely what Ezzat Baghdadi—an independent diplomat and director of the KMT Center—calls “the man of the hour,” “neither savior nor author of a comprehensive program, but a mediator between chaos and the minimum acceptable.” The latter wrote on his Facebook page: "Al-Jolani's project does not sell a comprehensive political program, does not promise a modern state, and does not demand full sovereign recognition. What he proposes—and what is asked of him—is simpler and more pragmatic: reducing risks. Reducing the risk of security explosions, limiting the export of violence beyond borders, controlling the multiplicity of factions, and offering a single point of contact instead of a multitude of chaotic addresses. In a failed world, this is an attractive offer. […] In such a climate, the “political solution” is no longer a prerequisite for any negotiation, but simply not collapsing becomes the criterion for success. This is the real translation of a phrase we have heard repeatedly from diplomats in closed-door meetings: “Stability takes precedence over democracy.” And Al-Sharaa is in line with this requirement, as he does not open any difficult issues: no transitional justice, no restructuring of the state, no promises of major investments. He presents himself as a temporary political operator, capable of keeping the crisis below the critical threshold. This is not a project, it is a calculated postponement. […] Selling risk reduction is not a solution. But it becomes acceptable when the ability to finance solutions collapses. This is where the moral and political paradox lies: what seems rational in the short term accumulates higher costs in the long term. Because crisis management prolongs its duration, exhausts political time, and delays the reconstruction of a unifying legitimacy. That is why describing Al-Sharaa as “the man of the hour” does not mean conferring historical legitimacy on him, but rather placing him back in his functional role: the product of a global moment that buys time instead of a future and prefers to manage risks rather than confront them. Ahmed al-Sharaa is not the solution for Syria, but a sign of a world that is learning to coexist with crises rather than end them. His existence is linked to the persistence of the current phase, and his end will come as soon as a less costly and more sustainable alternative appears. Al-Jolani is ultimately no more than a racehorse”.

Conclusion

The question of whether Abu Muhammad al-Jolani has ceased to be a jihadist and whether he has been “deradicalized” distracts us from the issue that should concern us all more after half a century of dictatorship: was he democratically elected by the Syrian people, and how does he differ from Bashar al-Assad in this regard? As Ezzat Baghdadi so aptly puts it, it is not a question of Syrians continuing to manage a crisis that has lasted for decades, but of finally achieving what they aspired to when they took to the streets in 2011: social justice and democracy. In other words, a political solution, which means that no peace can be satisfactory unless it is accompanied by a robust transitional justice process. Therefore, a “Trump-style peace” that only allows foreign powers to plunder the country's resources and militarize the territory without ensuring security and equality for all Syrians before the law is not even a temporary solution; it is a guarantee of a new catastrophe in the very short term, of which the massacres on the coast and in Suwayda were only a harbinger. If Al-Jolani is a model of success for world leaders, it is because he resembles them: he is an opportunist who exploits the people's aspirations to serve the interests of his sponsors, as well as his own and those of his clan. After all, his father's cousin, Farouk al-Sharaa, was Bashar al-Assad's vice president, so the status quo he represented required that a member of the family take over and, if it makes him happy, appoint his own brother as secretary to the presidency. In conclusion, one can wonder whether the self-proclaimed president was ever truly a jihadist, or if he was nothing more than just another social climber in the great pantheon of tyrants. In any case, until Ahmad al-Sharaa is democratically elected by a majority of Syrians, including all Syrian communities, it is appropriate to continue referring to him by his nom de guerre: Abu Muhammad al-Jolani.

This article was written as part of an investigation into crimes committed in Suwayda during July 2025. It reflects only some of the findings and will be updated at a later date. For more information, visit the page dedicated to our investigation project: https://interstices-fajawat.org/our-projects/investigation-project/

Between July 13 and 21, 2025, the Syrian province of Suwayda in southern Syria was subjected to military aggression by armed groups affiliated with the Syrian de facto authorities, resulting in the deaths of more than 930 civilians and 550 Druze and Christian fighters. While this operation was widely presented as an intervention aimed at restoring order following inter-communal clashes, an in-depth analysis of the causes and circumstances of these events reveals a very different reality and highlights the full responsibility of Ahmad al-Sharaa's non-elected government in what must be considered a war crime.

Context

On December 9, 2024, the day after Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, Ahmed al-Sharaa (nom de guerre: Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) proclaimed himself head of the Syrian state, categorically rejecting any form of power sharing, decentralization, or federalism, while demanding that all armed groups lay down their arms and join the new national army, placed under the command of dozens of Islamist warlords appointed at the end of December to the highest positions in the army, including several foreign jihadists.

Along with the Kurds, the Druze are the only communities in Syria that enjoy both a form of autonomy within a specific territory and significant armed forces dedicated to the self-defense of their community on ethno-confessional or political grounds. For Al-Sharaa, their subjugation is therefore an important power issue, as only their total surrender can secure his control over the entire Syrian territory. During the first half of 2025, the de facto government proceeded methodically to achieve this goal.

As we publish these lines, the provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa have been almost entirely retaken by government forces and Bedouin armed groups, while the fate of the province of Hasakeh remains suspended pending the outcome of talks between the government and Kurdish forces. Consistent reports also suggest that US diplomacy is supporting the Syrian government in its efforts to bring the province of Suwayda under its control. It cannot therefore be ruled out that a new deployment of force may take place in the coming weeks.

First phase: negotiations and seeds of discord (January–March)

On January 1st, 2025, a first convoy from the General Security attempted to enter the province of Suwayda without prior coordination with local authorities and factions, who refused them access. The Druze position was very clear: there can be no armed deployment in the province and no disarmament of local factions in the absence of a state, a constitution, and a government, and therefore a minimum of democratic guarantees and concrete commitments to the protection of minorities.

This event prompted one of the three main Druze spiritual leaders (Sheikh Aql or sheikhs of reason) in Syria, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, to clarify his position in two interviews with Syria TV and 963+ on January 8. He shared his vision for the future, calling for national unity and inclusive, decentralized governance within the framework of a civil state. In particular, he emphasized that Suwayda had spoken out against separation since the beginning of the 2011 uprising. His position appeared relatively moderate and echoed that of many Syrians, although his leadership is far from consensual within the Druze community of Suwayda, particularly because of his support for Bashar al-Assad until 2023. It should also be noted that he has been in open conflict for more than twelve years with the two other sheikhs of reason, Youssef Jarbou'a and Hammoud al-Hennawi.

In the first quarter of 2025, rallies continued in Suwayda's Dignity Square, where they had been held regularly since the fall of 2023 in opposition to the Assad regime. By now, these demonstrations were an opportunity to celebrate the fall of the regime and engage in heated discussions about the future. While opinions were divided, particularly on the trustworthiness of Al-Jolani and his armed forces, the majority of participants expressed hope and joy, singing songs of the 2011 insurrection and waving almost exclusively the Syrian independence flag with three red stars, which had once again become the official flag of Syria.

The divide within the Suwayda community widened in February, as the central government held direct negotiations with certain local factions, notably the two controversial Druze sheikhs Laith al-Balous and Suleiman Abdul Baqi, to prepare for the activation of the Ministries of Interior and Defense in Suwayda. Leaders of the micro-factions Madhafeh al-Karameh (Guesthouse of Dignity) and Ahrar Jabal al-Arab (Free Men of the Arab Mountains), the two men have had a troubled history over the past ten years, straddling the line between armed rebellion and banditry. The first, son of the very popular founder of the Rijal al-Karameh (Men of Dignity) movement, Wahid al-Balous, was expelled from the movement in 2016 after his father's death due to his lack of integrity (cases of theft and handling stolen goods), before seeking his place in several factions and finally isolating himself and establishing his own. The second was convicted in 2009 for murdering the young Christian Moses George Francis in an honor killing, before becoming a member of the National Defense Forces, the main pro-Assad militia, and then specializing in mediating kidnapping cases, his role as an intermediary allowing him to take a percentage of each ransom. Both men rose to prominence during the war against gangs that began in 2022, during which Laith al-Balous was seen executing several members of Raji Falhout's gang, a mafia boss close to Hezbollah and Bashar al-Assad's military intelligence, in a public square (Dawar al-Mashnaqa). The images of this summary execution would later be manipulated to legitimize the violence committed against the Druze in 2025.Nevertheless, Al-Balous and Abdul Baqi regularly appeared in close company with senior government officials between February and April, and began to publicly advocate for the integration of factions into the national army, despite any coordination with all armed factions and components of local civil society. It should be noted that only the Rijal al-Karameh and Liwa al-Jabal (Mountain Brigade) factions—which at the time represented the majority position of Suwayda residents—coordinated with other civilian and armed components of the Druze community. During the same period, Colonel Bunyan al-Hariri, commander of the Syrian Army Division covering the three southern provinces of Syria (Suwayda, Deraa, Quneitra), visited armed groups in the neighboring province of Deraa to organize their integration into the national army. On February 19, he visited the Bedouin tribes of the Al-Lajat region, located between Suwayda and Deraa and known to be one of the strongholds of the Islamic State in the region. This area and its residents would play a key role in the July offensive.

In the days that followed, former officer Tareq al-Shoufi officially announced the existence of the Suwayda Military Council, which since December had been bringing together former military personnel and members of factions opposed to the government of Ahmad al-Sharaa and to integration into the national army. Stating its desire to establish a national army that is independent of all foreign influence and inclusive of all ethnic and religious groups, the movement was hoping to unite all Druze factions behind a single banner promoting secularism and federalism, based on the model of the Syrian Democratic Forces in northeastern Syria. A number of small local factions loyal to Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari pledged allegiance to the Military Council in the weeks that followed, although the sheikh's support for the Council has not been confirmed at this stage. It should be noted that the Military Council's interventions during the protests in Dignity Square appeared to be marginal provocations carried out by a small group of about 15 young men waving portraits of Sheikh al-Hajari and lacking any coherent political discourse. The Military Council was indeed rather poorly perceived, accused by many within the community itself of both bringing together former agents of Bashar al-Assad's regime (“fulul”) and serving foreign interests. While it is true that former loyalists and gangsters have found shelter among these new rebel forces, this is not sufficient grounds to accuse either faction of embodying a loyalist force as such, as is the case with the “Coastal Shield” brigade led by former Alawite officers.

On March 1, 2025, government forces arbitrarily set up a checkpoint at the entrance to the predominantly Druze neighborhood of Jaramana, located on the southeastern outskirts of Damascus, prompting the Druze factions to set up a checkpoint nearby in response. Armed individuals affiliated with the Ministry of Defense then attempted to pass through the druze-maned checkpoint and were asked to surrender their weapons, provoking an altercation followed by a shootout that resulted in the death of one of them and the capture of a second, who was wounded in the shooting. The situation then escalated during an argument between officers from the Jaramana-Salmiyah police station and community representatives, resulting in the expulsion of the officers and the seizure of weapons from the police station. Laith al-Balous finally stepped in as a mediator to calm the conflict, while Israeli officials added fuel to the fire by threatening the Syrian government with military intervention if the Druze were to be targeted.

Immediately after these incidents, a small group in Suwayda took the initiative to raise an Israeli flag at the entrance to the city and broadcast a video statement calling for Israeli intervention, before local factions took down and burned the flag. The local controversy over the flags—revealing an increasingly polarized debate within the province over the attitude to adopt toward the central government—only intensified in the weeks that followed. On March 6, the Rijal al-Karameh movement announced in a statement that it had reached an agreement with the government through Laith al-Balous and Suleiman Abdul Baqi to reactivate the security forces in the province of Suwayda. Eight General Security vehicles were delivered that same day, further fueling controversy within the community, with some factions  threatening to burn the vehicles if they were deployed in the province.

It was at this point that the massacres of the Alawite population on the Syrian coast took place, resulting in the killing of more than 1,400 civilians, an event that cannot be separated from what would happen later in Suwayda. It should be mentioned in this regard that Bedouin tribes have already been used in these events by the government to act as auxiliary forces and compensate for the weakness of the army following Israel's destruction of all the heavy weaponry left behind by the former regime. As well, sectarian hate speech, images of atrocities, and terror spread on social media and gradually took precedence over rational analysis of the situation. Hundreds of students from Suwayda were repatriated from university dormitories in Latakia and Tartus when the curfew imposed on the region was lifted. This evacuation operation was organized in particular through the intermediary of Suleiman Abdul Baqi, revealing the government's desire to impose him as a mediator and legitimate guarantor of the protection of the Druze, despite his deplorable reputation in Suwayda. On March 8, he escaped an assassination attempt when his house was targeted by an RPG rocket.

During the second week of March, with the massacres committed on the Syrian coast still fresh in everyone's minds, the government announced the signing of an agreement with Kurdish officer Mazlum Abdi for the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the national army, while the government envoy to Suwayda, Mustafa Bakour, agreed with the Druze leadership to activate government forces in the province, on condition that its members be recruited exclusively from within the local community. Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari initially gave his agreement in principle—his nephew and spokesman Usama al-Hajari was among the signatories of a memorandum adopted on March 12—before declaring that he himself had not signed the document and accusing the government of being a terrorist entity in a video broadcast from his guesthouse in Qanawat. That same evening, his supporters raised the Druze unitarian flag at several roundabouts in the city of Suwayda and fired shots into the air to boast about their opposition to the use of the independence flag and submission to the central government.

At the same time, the Rijal al-Karameh movement opened a recruitment office in Mazraa in collaboration with Laith Al-Balous, enlisting nearly 800 members of Bedouin tribes. In parallel, nearly 4,000 former members of Assad's security forces had their status settled. Throughout March and April, numerous talks and meetings took place between civic, religious, and military leaders in Suwayda, as well as with Governor Mustafa Bakour, during which the druze side reiterated its refusal to disarm local factions without serious security guarantees for minorities, as well as its agreement to the deployment of security forces affiliated with the central government, once again on the sole condition that its members be exclusively from the province.

On April 20, Culture Minister Mohammed Yassin Saleh, Ahmad al-Sharaa’s brother Jamal, and Sayf ad-Din Bulad, commander of the 76th Military Division, met with several Bedouin leaders formerly affiliated with the Assad regime, including Ibrahim al-Hafel (Uqaydat tribe) and Farhan al-Marsoumi (Marsama tribe) at the latter's home on the outskirts of Damascus (Al-Moadamiyeh). This controversial visit was part of a series of negotiations and bribing involving Bedouin tribes with the aim of securing their allegiance. These tribes will play a decisive role in subsequent events.

Second phase: first warning and intimidation (April–June)

On April 27, a fake recording was circulated on social media in which an unidentified voice could be heard insulting the Prophet Muhammad, sparking a riot by Islamists at the University of Homs, led by petroleum engineering student Abbas Al-Khaswani. This Islamist agitator, identified as one of the armed perpetrators of the attacks on the Syrian coast two months earlier, delivered an inflammatory speech in which he called for violence against the Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities. Following this speech, dozens of people chanting sectarian and hateful slogans stormed the university campus and attacked non-Muslim students. The elderly Druze sheikh Marwan Kiwan, accused of being the author of the recording, quickly denied the accusation, while the de facto authorities in Damascus issued an unconvincing press release thanking the rioters for their efforts to defend their prophet, instead of holding them accountable for the dangerous unrest they had caused. Abbas Al-Khaswani was not arrested and returned to the university the next day, where he and his colleagues would continue to threaten the safety of other students.

Two days later, the authenticity of the recording was finally denied by the government, but it took no action to prevent subsequent events from unfolding. As a result, unidentified armed groups attacked the Jaramana neighborhood that same day, targeting its residents and local Druze self-defense factions. The General Security intervened alongside the groups that had previously attacked the neighborhood, themselves identified as Bedouins from the Al-Uqaydat tribe, originally from Deir Ez-Zor, so that it was uneasy to distinguish between them. Seventeen attackers were killed before being reported as members of the General Security, while local factions were designated as the main instigators of the clashes.On April 30, armed Islamist groups from Dera’a, Deir Ez Zor, and Ghouta attacked the towns of Sahnaya and Ashrafiyeh-Sahnaya in a pattern similar to that seen in Jaramana, targeting residents and local Druze self-defense factions. This time, 45 people were killed, most of them members of the Druze community. Among them, 10 civilians were summarily executed, including the mayor of the city, Hussam Warwar, and his son Haider. Although Warwar had been seen welcoming General Security forces a few hours before his execution. At the same time, Druze factions from Suwayda attempted to leave the governorate to rescue their community under attack in Sahnaya-Ashrafiyeh, but were ambushed near Braq, on the road to Damascus, by mixed groups of local tribes and Islamists from Dera'a and Deir Ez Zor, as well as members of the General Security. A video clearly shows them opening fire as they stand side by side. As a result, 42 Druze fighters were killed, with the community of Salkhad particularly affected, with 11 martyrs belonging to the Quwaat Sheikh al-Karami and Quwaat al-‘Alya self-defense factions, including the leader of the latter, Amjad Baali.

On May 1, the central authority in Damascus reiterated its pressure on the leaders of the Druze community to accept the disarmament of local factions, unjustly accused of being the source of the unrest. Israel took advantage of the situation to threaten Syria and bombed near the presidential palace in Damascus, allegedly to “send a warning” to the Syrian authorities in case of threats against the Druze. Following negotiations between the government and the Druze leadership, a five-point agreement was finally adopted, providing for the activation of the police and General Security in the governorate of Suwayda, on condition that its members all originate from the region, as well as the securing of the road to Damascus and a ceasefire in all areas affected by the clashes of recent days. It should be noted that during the day, Laith al-Balous escaped an assassination attempt while traveling in Shahba, before being heckled in his town of Mazraa for opening it up to several General Security vehicles. The latter were once again sent back out of the province.

On the night of May 1, mortar shells were fired at the towns of As-Sawara al-Kbira, Al-Thaala, Ad-Dour, ‘Ira, Kanaker, and Rsas in the province of Suwayda. All factions in Suwayda, comprising more than 30,000 fighters, were put on alert and deployed to strategic points throughout the governorate, while the General Security encircled the governorate that same evening, ostensibly to prevent any further attacks from Dera’a. This did not prevent armed groups from attacking the villages of Lubayn, Harran, Ad-Dour, and Jreen, located on the western border of the province, where they encountered strong resistance, resulting in the death of most of the attackers. The number of casualties is unknown, but the attackers were identified as belonging to local Bedouin tribes.

On May 2, an Israeli drone flying over Suwayda targeted a farm in Kanaker, killing four of its Druze inhabitants. One of them, Issam Azam, was known for actively supporting the protests in Dignity Square against the Assad regime. During the night, Israeli planes launched a series of strikes on military sites in Dera'a, Damascus, and Hama. On May 3, Khaldun Sayah Al-Mahithawi, a Druze lawyer involved in negotiating the release of another lawyer kidnapped north of Suwayda, was assassinated in Aqraba, near Jaramana, while the 11 martyrs of Salkhad were buried after a ceremony attended by thousands of people in their hometown.

On May 5, clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze factions continued in the vicinity of al-Thaala and Harran in Suwayda, while rumors circulated that Druze factions were threatening mosques. Several imams from the region and representatives of local Bedouin tribes denied these rumors of sectarian threats by the Druze against Muslims, reaffirming peaceful coexistence within the governorate and the need to combat fake news and sectarian incitement on social media. The Druze factions have in fact deployed to protect Muslim religious sites from any individual sectarian initiatives. After the General Security withdrew from the town of As-Sawara al-Kbira, the Suwayda police entered the town accompanied by Governor Mustafa Bakur and found several houses burned and looted, as well as the Druze shrine. It should be noted that the only town where houses were looted and vandalized in Suwayda was also the only one where General Security forces had been deployed.

As part of the agreement signed on May 1, the government has set up several checkpoints on the road between Suwayda and Damascus, while Druze police officers have been deployed at the entrance to As-Sawara al-Kbira, the first village in the province. Eleven kilometers further north, at the strategic junction of the roads connecting Damascus, Suwayda, and Deraa, a checkpoint was entrusted to armed men belonging to Bedouin tribes in the region (the Al-Na'im tribe from the village of Al-Mtalleh and the Al-Lajat region), whose affiliation with government forces was uncertain: they were not wearing official uniforms and several of them were wearing masks and displaying ISIS symbols. At the same time, it was announced that three members of the Uqaydat tribe from Shuhayl (Deir Ez-Zor) had been appointed to senior positions: Hussein al-Salama as head of intelligence, replacing Anas Khattab; Amer Names al-‘Ali as president of the Central Control and Inspection Authority (anti-corruption); and Sheikh Rami Shahir al-Saleh al-Dosh as head of the Supreme Council of Tribes and Clans, an entity subordinate to HTS since 2019. These appointments came just as their tribe was one of the most involved in the deadly attacks against the Druze community in recent days.

Between May and July, numerous complaints were made about the Braq-Masmiyeh checkpoint, whose guards were accused of harassment, theft, and extortion against road users traveling to or from Suwayda. On several occasions, continuing criminal practices dating back to before the fall of the Assad regime, passengers were kidnapped or targeted by gunfire from armed Bedouin groups residing in Al-Mtalleh and Al-Lajat. As a result, the government's May 1 commitment to secure the road between Damascus and Suwayda has not been honored and has been violated by members of the government forces themselves. During the same period, sectarian violence has increased, with members of religious minorities being murdered every week in different parts of the country, culminating in the attack on the Mar Elias Orthodox Christian Church in the Dweila neighborhood of Damascus on June 22, 2025. Five people from the Christian community of Kharaba, a village west of Suwayda, were among those killed in the explosion. It was later revealed that one of the attackers was a member of the Ministry of Defense.

Third phase: the invasion and massacres (July)

In early July, under the pretext of settling a dispute with the Bedouin groups in charge of the checkpoint, government forces interrupted road traffic for several hours, during which the security officials for Suwayda and Deraa, Ahmed al-Dalati and Shaher Jabr Omran (nom de guerre: Abu al-Baraa) traveled to Bedouin hamlets in the Al-Lajat region to reconcile two clans disputing control of the Braq-Masmiyeh checkpoint and offered to integrate several dozen of their members into the Interior Ministry forces.

On July 11, Druze merchant Fadlallah Dwara was kidnapped near the checkpoint, beaten, robbed of his vehicle, cargo, phone, and money, and then thrown onto the side of the road. The response was swift. The very next day, a Druze faction from Ariqa kidnapped Bedouins—who were not connected to Fadlallah Dwara's kidnappers—prompting a retaliatory response from Bedouin clans in Suwayda, particularly those in the Al-Maqwas neighborhood, located at the eastern entrance to the city of Suwayda. At around 9 a.m. on July 13, they blocked the road to the mountains and kidnapped five Druze civilians.

1. The Southern Tribes Gathering starts the conflict

Alert issued by the Southern Tribes Gathering on July 13 at 4:18 p.m.

2. Government forces invade Suwayda

At least five of these divisions are led by (ex)-jihadists, while the 82nd Division contains elements likely to sympathize with ISIS. Several members of its units have been seen in videos in Suwayda wearing the organization's emblem. A number of factors also confirm the presence of two units of the special forces with a notorious reputation: the Ali Bin Abi Talib brigade commanded by Abd al-Mun’im al-Dhaher (Abu Suleiman al-‘Iss) – who would get injured in the battle - and the “Red Bands” unit, whose leadership remains unclear to this day. The latter are trained by private military companies founded by foreign jihadists, notably Malhama Tactical, a group founded by Chechen Abdullah Tac. It should be pointed out that a Chechen fighter was taken prisoner by Druze factions, who interrogated him on camera.

In the middle of the afternoon, the Suwayda National Hospital announced that it had recorded 53 deaths and more than 200 injuries. While other towns in the province, such as Walgha, 'Atil, Rima Hazem, and Rsas, were already being bombed and experiencing clashes, the advance of government forces was finally halted shortly before 6 p.m. when the Israeli air force carried out its first strike between Mazraa and Walgha, at the entrance to the University of Agricultural and Veterinary Studies, before following up with further strikes on other roads leading to Suwayda.

At dawn on July 15, intense military pressure combined with international diplomatic pressure forced Sheikh Al-Hajari to accept the deployment of government forces in the province and city of Suwayda and to call on the factions not to resist and to cooperate with them by handing over their weapons. Thus, at 8 a.m., Interior Ministry Colonel Ahmed al-Dalati announced the entry of government forces into Suwayda and the enforcement of a curfew, calling on Druze factions to lay down their arms. At 8:15 a.m., government forces entered the outskirts of Suwayda from Kanaker in the southwest, and thirty minutes later they reached the Omran roundabout in the northwest. Clashes broke out immediately afterwards and were quickly accompanied by acts of violence as armed groups with no clear affiliations spread throughout the city's neighborhoods and proceeded to systematically destroy and loot shops and homes, as well as summarily execute numerous civilians.

At 10:50 a.m., an initial report already mentioned 24 executions of civilians, while at 12:20 p.m., news spread of the massacre of more than a dozen members of the Al-Radwan family in the guesthouse of their home, even as Ahmed al-Dalati had just declared a ceasefire with the aim of bringing the Druze leadership back to the negotiating table. Ahmad al-Dalati and Shaher Jabr Omran thus met around noon with representatives of various local religious groups and factions in the Druze shrine of Ain al-Zaman, located in the heart of the city, even as fighting and crimes continued to unfold in the surrounding neighborhoods.

An hour later, the first images of the atrocities were made public, while the attackers posted videos of their own crimes on social media in real time. Many videos show members of the government forces and Bedouin tribes staging scenes in which they beat civilians, forcibly shave their mustaches, and even summarily execute them before desecrating their corpses, calling them repeatedly “ya khanazir”, which means “you pigs!”. Entire families were executed in their homes or in public spaces, while many people were shot dead in their cars or targeted by snipers as they tried to flee the city. Among the victims were many elderly people and children. The youngest victim was three months old. They also left numerous inscriptions on walls, openly signing their names and claiming responsibility for their crimes. These numerous acts of violence were committed in most of the occupied neighborhoods of the city, even though a dozen journalists affiliated with the Ministry of Communication were present nearby, as well as Security Chief Ahmad al-Dalati, who appeared at around 2:20 p.m. on the roof of a vehicle in the middle of the Bedouin neighborhood of Al-Maqwas to announce its “liberation.”

Until dawn on July 17, government forces and their Bedouin auxiliaries fought with Druze factions for control of the city's neighborhoods, while the Israeli air force carried out targeted strikes in and around Suwayda. The National Hospital neighborhood was the scene of intense fighting on several occasions over the two days: government forces targeted the hospital for the first time on July 15 at around 5 p.m., then again on the morning of the 16th, finally taking control of it at around 3 p.m. that same day. Members of the army and General Security killed the police officers in charge of security at the premises, then executed wounded patients and medical staff: CCTV footage shows the execution of nurse Mohammad Buhsas in the hospital lobby. When government forces began their withdrawal at dawn on the 17th, armed Bedouin groups remained in the city and were repelled or eliminated by Druze factions during the day. In several neighborhoods where they had remained over the previous 24 hours, numerous bodies of executed civilians were discovered.

Several sources confirm that on the morning of July 17, as Druze factions regained control of the situation, crimes were committed against Bedouin populations in several localities, who were subjected to forced expulsions, physical violence, and even killings, while a number of homes were set on fire. There are also indications that the Al-Hrubi mosque was vandalized, while satellite images confirm that destruction was carried out in Shahba and Breiki. Unfortunately, these localities remain inaccessible to independent investigators, and press reports of persecution against Bedouin populations are riddled with approximations and false testimony, making it impossible to distinguish truth from fiction.

3. The Syrian Council of Tribes and Clans comes to the rescue

The head of the Council of Syrian Tribes and Clans Abdul Moneim al-Naseef calls on all Bedouin tribes to converge on Suwayda to reinforce the Southern Tribes Gathering, Deir Ez-Zor, July 18, 12:50 a.m.

At this stage of our investigation, it has been confirmed that the following Bedouin tribes and clans actively participated in the assault on the Suwayda community:

However, it cannot be ruled out that members of other tribes participated individually or collectively in the attack, as at least 40 other tribe and clan names were mentioned in our sources by participants and members of these groups themselves. This would bring the number of participating clans and tribes to 81, out of a total of 211 Syrian clans and tribes listed in our database, which would therefore represent between 38 and 40% of the country's tribes and clans.

It is also important to remember, as we have already pointed out, that the government forces themselves have recruited Bedouins on a massive scale. Furthermore, the rebel and jihadist groups that merged with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in January 2025 to place themselves under the command of the Ministry of Defense were already largely made up of Bedouins.

Fourth phase: siege and denial (July-present)

In the days following the ceasefire, journalists were kept out of the province, where government forces set up checkpoints and claimed that Druze factions were preventing anyone from entering, a claim refuted by a number of residents. The Civil Defense (“White Helmets”) organized a humanitarian corridor for people residing abroad from the south of the province to the neighboring town of Bosra al-Sham, until several incidents involving gunfire and passenger abductions interrupted operations.

On July 31, the Ministry of Justice announced the establishment of an Investigation Committee on the events in Suwayda, but like other institutions implemented by the de facto authority, it does not meet the conditions of impartiality and independence required to carry out these investigations. The representative of the commission of inquiry into crimes committed against the Alawites on the Syrian Coast in march, Yasser al-Farhan, who delivered his conclusions the day after the massacres in Suwayda (July 22), had earlier thanked the Bedouin tribes for their intervention on the coast, while Anas Ayrout, head of the Supreme Committee for the Preservation of Civil Peace in Syria, issued a statement on July 18 praising the tribes and congratulating them on their mobilization. Another member of this committee, Sheikh Ragheb al-Saifi from the Uqaydat tribe, has been identified as one of the coordinators of the attack on Suwayda. Finally, Al-Sharaa himself thanked the tribes for their “heroic commitment” in his public address on July 19, without ever considering them to be “outlaw gangs” that needed to be disarmed.

On October 12, the government organized a campaign called “Suwayda is ours and we are hers,” an inappropriate charity event intended to raise money for the province. The event was held in the martyred village of As-Sawara al-Kbira, a Christian village whose church was burned down and many of whose residents were murdered, in the presence of Mustafa Bakour, representatives of the tribes involved in the massacres, and Laith al-Balous and Suleiman Abdul Baqi. The latter are portrayed by the government as representatives of the Druze community and are subsequently called upon in diplomatic negotiations abroad, even though they played an active role in committing crimes against their own community. Suleiman Abdul Baqi, who, it should be remembered, himself murdered a young Christian for religious reasons, was promoted to “Head of Security for Suwayda” before being invited to Washington by members of the US Congress on January 22, 2026.

On December 17, the leader of the Southern Tribes Gathering, Rakan al-Khudeir, organized his “Victory Festival” in his stronghold of Al-Mtalleh—the Bedouin village where the violence began—to celebrate the anniversary of Assad's fall, declaring that the Southern Tribes' allegiance to the state was a national duty. Mustafa Bakour and several government representatives were present, as well as representatives of the Council of Tribes and Clans.

More than six months after the military assault, 34 villages remain occupied by government forces, who have made Mazraa the administrative center of the occupied area. Governor Mustafa Bakour is organizing the cosmetic rehabilitation of hundreds of burned houses in order to conceal the extent of the crimes committed, while nearly 190,000 residents remain displaced outside the area. Earth barriers cut off a number of roads and access to the occupied area remains hampered, while armed groups continue to use the villages of Mazraa, Walgha, and Al-Mansoura as a launching pad for regular raids and strikes against Druze positions, particularly the villages of Umm Zeytoun, Najran, Majdal, Remat Hazem, and the western suburbs of Suwayda city. Although the road to Damascus is officially reopened to trafic, movement is extremely limited and many men in the province are de facto housebound, as they have been for the past ten years, for fear of being associated with combatants and arrested at checkpoints.

All these factors do not bode well for the weeks and months ahead, with foreign governments seemingly agreeing to give carte blanche to the unelected president Ahmad al-Sharaa, who for many Syrians has never ceased to be the warlord Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.

Left: Map of the Suwayda province showing the attacked and occupied areas | Above: Map of Suwayda city neighborhoods.

Summary Abuses and Killings (Non-exhaustive list)

1. 1. On July 15 at around 9:45 a.m. in the town of Al-Thaala, located 10 km west of Suwayda city, nine civilians were executed in the courtyard of their home by men in military uniforms. Among them were two children aged 13 and 15. The victims are from Akhwan, Dahouk, and Aouj families.
   2. On July 15, four civilians, including a 16-year-old child, were executed in their home in the Al-Khudr neighborhood of the city of Suwayda. The victims were members of the Saleh and Mahasen families.
   3. On July 15, three civilians belonging to the Hamidan family, one of whom were disabled, were executed at their home in the city of Suwayda.
   4. On July 15, around noon, armed men forced their way into the Radwan family home and executed thirteen civilians from the same family in their guesthouse.
   5. On July 15, armed men entered the Arnous family's apartment and forced three young men to jump from the balcony while shooting at them. The perpetrators filmed their actions. Prior to this, the father of the family was executed in the building. All four victims were members of the Arnous family.
   6. On July 15 at around 5:30 p.m. on Tishrin Square in the center of Suwayda, seven civilians, including one American citizen, were executed in the street after being abducted from their homes. The perpetrators filmed their actions. The victims were members of the Saraya family.
   7. On July 15, in the Nahda neighborhood of the city of Suwayda, six civilians from the Qarzab family were executed in their car as they attempted to leave the city.
   8. On July 15, near the Al-Khudr neighborhood of Suwayda, eight members of the Shuhayib family were executed on the side of the road leading to Al-Thaala.
   9. On July 16, at dawn in the National Hospital neighborhood of Suwayda twelve civilians were forcibly taken from their home to the ground floor of a building under construction located 140 meters South West from the entrance to the hospital and summarily executed on a pile of rubble and rubbish. The victims are from Dbeisi, Abu Maghdab, Shaarani, Zain, Hatem, Abu Faour, Qarqout, Abu Qaisar and Abu Fakhr families.
   10. On July 16 at 8:45 a.m. in the Al-Thawra neighborhood south of Suwayda city, five civilians were executed in and near their car as they attempted to leave the city. Three children were pulled from the vehicle before their relatives were executed and were kidnapped by the perpetrators. The scene was filmed by a surveillance camera. The victims were members of the Barbour, Musleh, Raef, and Ghanem families.
   11. On July 16 around 10:00 a.m. in the Al-Jawlan neighborhood of Suwayda, armed men broke into the Baeini – Abu Saadeh family home and executed four members of the family, including a teenager. Their bodies were found burned.
   12. On July 16, around 12:30 p.m. in the Al-Jaala neighborhood of Suwayda, four members of the Jarira family, including two 12-year-old children, were shot and killed in their car as they attempted to leave the city. A young girl survived by hiding in a ditch until dawn the next day.
   13. On the morning of July 16, in the old town of Suwayda, a group of men in military uniforms entered the Badr family home, where more than forty people had taken refuge, after throwing grenades inside. Twenty-three civilians were executed, some after being beaten and stabbed with knives. The victims are from Badr, Los, Kamal, Taqi, Shtay and Melhem families.
   14. On the morning of July 16, in the Al-Koum neighborhood of Suwayda (on the southern outskirts of the city), armed men broke into the Mezher family home and executed fourteen civilians. The victims are from Mezher, Halabi, Hamoud and Khatib families.
   15. On July 16, at the intersection of the main avenue (Route 110) and Al-Jandi al-Majhul Street, seven civilians were executed in the street after being abducted from their homes. The victims are from Mazhar, Ahmad, Ashqar, Hassoun and Abu Hamza families.
   16. During the day of July 16, a number of civilians were killed by sniper fire as they attempted to leave the city or seek shelter. Among them are several children. Non-exhaustive list of victims: Tala Al-Shufi (14 years old), Amer Hilal and her daughter Ghena (14), Qais Al-Nabwani (13), Dr Taalat Amer, Salama Al-Jaber…
   17. On July 17, in the village of Sahwet Blata, located 6 km southeast of the city of Suwayda, eleven members of the Gharz Ad-Din family were executed in their home. Among the victims was a three-month-old baby whose body was found in a cardboard box.
   18. On July 18, in the village of Walgha, located 4 km northwest of the city of Suwayda, five members of the Kfeiri family were executed in their home.
   19. On July 19, in the Mazraa neighborhood (Dawar Thaali) located northwest of the city of Suwayda, three members of the Sayyid family, including an 80-year-old disabled man, his wife, and their daughter, were executed and their bodies burned.