In southern Syria, the uprising of Dignity has begun

More than ten years after the uprising of 2011, the revolt has resumed in southern Syria. As in 2011, the mainstream media are not reporting much on it, as if popular uprisings in this region were only of interest if they coincided with the interests of the states that have been working to carve up the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot agreements in 1916.

This time, the revolt started in Suwayda, the Druze governorate, in the middle of August and spread modestly to other towns, notably in the neighboring governorate of Dera’a.

This text offers a contextualization on Syria in general and on Suwayda in particular. It has been written by people from the region who are concerned about the situation there, and who hope that a solution will finally be found for the people, which does not simply consist of choosing their oppressors. No foreign power can propose a viable and satisfactory solution for the Syrians, their land having served as a bloody playground for all the powers that have interfered in their affairs.

THE DRUZE EXCEPTION

The Druze are a religious community attached to a heterodox belief in Ismaili Shi’ite Islam, which originated in Egypt under the impetus of Imam Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad and Vizir Nashtakin ad-Darazi in the early 11th century. The druze religion, like Sufism, takes a philosophical and syncretic approach to faith, recognizing neither the rigorist precepts nor the prophets of Islam. Note that the Druzes prefer to call themselves Al-Muwahhidun (Unitarians) or Bani Maaruf (People of Goodness). Despite the spread of this belief to Cairo during the Fatimid caliphate of Al-Hakim, who was venerated by the Druzes, they were swiftly subjected to persecution by the rest of the Muslim community following his demise in 1021. As a result, they were exiled to Bilad el-Cham (present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine), specifically to Mount Lebanon and Hawran. However, it was around the beginning of the 19th century that the Druze community of Hawran gained strength after a large part of the community had been expelled from Mount Lebanon by the Ottoman authorities. The Hawran then took the name of Jabel 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 (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 (al-Juwlan, Galilee and Mount Karmel, 130,000), Venezuela (100,000), Jordan (20,000), North America (30,000), Colombia (3,000) and Australia (3,000).

Following numerous revolts against the Ottoman Empire until 1918, then against the French colonizers between 1925 and 1945¹The withdrawal of the French in 1945 was largely due to the fight for independence waged since the 1920s by Sultan Pacha al-Atrach, representing a family of Druze notables, whose feats of arms and resistance to the occupiers are still celebrated by many Syrians., the Druze have a reputation for insubordination that describes them to this day and which has enabled them to maintain a permanent balance of power with the Assad regime, based on compromises negotiated between Druze leaders and the regime’s local representatives²The regime has no checkpoints inside Suwayda governorate, and the community refuses to send its young people to the army outside the region. Nevertheless, the governorate administration and security services remain present and informed of what is happening in the region.. After 2011, despite a few sheikhs expressing their support for the regime³Among these sheikhs, the notorious ones are the sheikh Jerbo and Nayef al-Aqil from the Dir’ al-Watan faction., many Druzes took part in the demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad, mostly supporting the position of the “Men for Dignity”⁴https://yalibnan.com/2012/03/25/anti-regime-druze-spiritual-leader-killed-in-syria/, who refused to take part in the war and called on the community to arm itself for the sole purpose of self-defense. The sheikhs took the lead and the initiative by refusing to join the regime’s army with the aim of protecting the region and its youth, but also to prevent the community from being compromised in Assad’s war by taking part in the repression of other communities elsewhere. This defiance of the regime was embodied, among others, by the druze sheikhs Ahmed Salman al-Hajari and Abu Fahd Wahid al-Bal’ous, who both were killed, the first in a car “accident” in March 2012⁵https://www.meforum.org/5554/the-assassination-of-sheikh-abu-fahad-al-balous and the second in a bombing that killed 23 other people in September 2015.

Other prominent druze figures got involved in the opposition : Khaldoun Zeineddine, his brother Fadlallah Zeineddine and Hafez Jad Al-Kareem Faraj, all three officers in the Syrian army, from which they defected to join the rebels. Khaldoun Zeineddine formed the Sultan Pasha al-Atrash Battalion within the Free Syrian Army (FSA)⁶https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/22/druze-syria-assad-israel-netanyahu/ ; https://syrianobserver.com/news/34453/sedition_between_druze_and_sunni_fighters.html. Joined by a number of Druzes, the battalion, however, remained weak and isolated and faced several attacks and kidnappings by Al-Nusra rebels in Dera’a⁷https://www.meforum.org/3463/syrian-druze-neutrality before being finally wiped out and its commander killed in 2013⁸https://www.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/45392. Its remaining members fled to Jordan, from where they announced the cessation of their activities in January 2014, denouncing a lack of support for the revolution from the Suwayda Military Council and from the Druze community, as well as the hostility toward the Druze on the part of the rebel groups of Dera’a, called “Islamists” and accused of being accomplices of the Assad regime⁹ https://www.zamanalwsl.net/news/article/45392 (AR).

Generally speaking, the Druze have a very secularist vision of society, and their religious representatives refuse to take charge of the community’s political and administrative affairs. In the conflicts that have shaken Druze and Syrian society, the sheikhs have repeatedly expressed their support and encouragement for the community’s choices¹⁰https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8HeEzKTmbc (EN). While the Druze community has refused to take sides in the civil war, it has nevertheless always expressed its rejection of the regime, not hesitating to confront the security forces present in the governorate to enforce their demands or free prisoners from the hands of the army¹¹https://suwayda24.com/?p=20610 (AR).

BASHAR AND HIS ISLAMIST PUPPETS

Right from the start of the insurrection and repeatedly since, the regime has played the divide-and-rule card, urging the Shi’a and Ismaili religious minorities (to which the Druzes belong) to oppose the FSA because of the “Islamist threat” their Sunni majority component is supposed to represent. In the propagandist rhetoric of the regime and its allies, the FSA rebels are constantly equated with the Al-Nusra Front and branded as Salafists or takfiri, while the useful idiots of the Islamic State are used in a thousand ways to hinder the revolution and to go hand in hand with the regime’s forces for the indiscriminate slaughtering of the Syrian population. In fact, the most radical religious component of the Syrian opposition has been deliberately favored by the regime: between June and October 2011, three months after the first anti-regime demonstrations, Bashar al-Assad released nearly 1,500 Islamist militants from prison, most of whom went on to join jihadist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS. Thus, the main leaders of the Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam groups, as well as the ISIS section responsible for most of the beheading of foreigners, had previously been released from the notorious Saydnaya prison¹²https://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/projects/isis-jihad-syria-assad-islamic/ (EN).

Bashar al-Assad’s strategy has paid off, as the outpouring of violence from ISIS jihadists has succeeded in permanently distracting the rest of the world’s gaze from the atrocities committed by the Syrian army, the Shabihas¹³https://npasyria.com/en/53834/ (EN) ; https://cija-syria-paramilitaries.org/#investigating-assads-ghosts (EN) and Iran-backed militias¹⁴https://syriafreedomforever.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/the-rawr-report-interview-with-joseph-daher-on-hezbollah-and-the-syrian-revolution-02162017/ (EN), and then from the massive bombing of civilians in the north and east of the country by the Russian air force from September 2015 onwards¹⁵https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/9/30/russia-carries-out-first-air-strikes-in-syria, with this military intervention itself motivated by the “fight against Islamists”. Moreover, it has enabled the Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) to distance themselves from the Syrian revolution and focus their forces on the fight against the Islamists, mainly with American help. Finally, because of the terror instigated by the jihadists and out of disinterest in the fate of the Syrian people and their revolution, the “international community” (EU, USA and UN) did not bring substantial support to the FSA, leaving Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to provide logistical and military support to the FSA components most compatible with their political agenda and confessional interests, so to speak “the Islamists”¹⁶The main are Ahrar al-Sham (Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia), Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (Qatar, Turkey), Liwa al-Tawhid (Qatar, Turkey), Jaych al-Islam (Saudi Arabia, Qatar).. The democratic, secular and socialist components of the FSA, abandoned on most sides and threatened from within by the Islamists, then had no choice but to join the sectarian groups in order to survive and continue the fight against the main executioner of the Syrian people: the regime of Bashar al-Assad¹⁷https://thisishell.com/interviews/894-leila-al-shami-robin-yassin-kassab (EN).

In May 2018, Bashar al-Assad’s regime made an agreement with ISIS for their surrender in the Damascus area¹⁸https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/1275206/isis-militants-evacuated-southern-damascus-desert (EN). Following this agreement, 800 of its fighters and their families (1,800 people) had been evacuated from the districts of Yarmouk and Tadamon (Damascus suburbs) to the desert near Palmyra and to abandoned villages northeast of Suwayda¹⁹Hamlets called Ashraffieh, al-Saqiya and al-Awara, less than 20 kilometers from the Khalkhalah military base and less than 10 kilometers from the first Druze settlements at the gateway to the desert, al-Qasr and Barek – https://suwayda24.com/?p=2423 (AR), with 40 trucks and cars under heavy guard by the Syrian army. Three months later, on July 25, 2018, ISIS predictably attempted to invade the Suwayda governorate from the east, guided by Bedouins who had a long-standing discord with the Druzes. At dawn, ISIS fighters thus began slaughtering the population of several druze villages on the edge of the desert²⁰Villages of Tema, Douma, Al-Kseib, Tarba, Ghaydah Hamayel, Rami, al-Shabki, al-Sharahi, al-Matouna and al-Suwaymra – https://suwayda24.com/?p=4431 before taking 42 members of the community as hostages (including 16 children and 14 women²¹On July 31, 2018, the regime negotiated the release of women held hostage by the jihadists, in exchange for an agreement to evacuate more than 200 of their fighters from western Deraa (Yarmouk Basin) to the Badiya region. Refusing the deal, the Islamic State demanded a ransom, before publishing the video of the execution of one of the hostages, Muhannad Touqan Abu Ammar, a 19-year-old Druze resident of al-Shbeki, on August 2, 2018 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OhL8bJD2M (AR). Eventually, the remaining hostages were released following agreements reached with the regime in october and november 2018, while 700 to 1,000 jihadists were evacuated to Badiya under a new agreement reached with the regime on November 17 – https://suwayda24.com/?p=19606 (AR) ; https://stj-sy.org/en/946/ (EN)) and carrying out four suicide attacks in the heart of the main city of Suwayda²²https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/25/syria-isis-holding-children-hostage (EN). Hundreds of Druzes from Jabal al-Druze (the region of Suwayda), joined by Druzes from Jabal al-Sheikh (located on the border with Lebanon), spontaneously took up arms and threw ISIS back into the desert, putting a stop to its campaign towards the south of the country²³The ISIS offensive affected 10 villages, 263 people were killed (30 by the suicide bombers in Suwayda) and 300 injured. In retaliation for the massacre, on August 7, 2018 local members of the pro-regime Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) hanged an elderly man they presented as a jihadist at the so-called “Arch of the Hanged” (al-Mashnaqah) in the town of Suwayda – https://suwayda24.com/?p=4711 (AR) ; https://syria.news/179bd6d3-07081812.html (AR) ; https://orient-news.net/ar/news_show/152458 (AR) but also definitively confirming the anger and distrust of the Suwayda Druzes towards the Syrian regime, accused of using ISIS to weaken them²⁴The regime’s army intervened only belatedly (after the attack on the Khalkhalah military base located to the north of Suwayda governorate) to track down ISIS into the desert next to the volcanic field of as-Safa, as they were already pushed back by the Druzes’ counter-attack..

REGIME AND GANGS HAND IN HAND

Although the region has escaped bombardment and military operations since 2011, the people of Suwayda, like all Syrians, have endured the consequences of the war and the regime’s murderous policies: sporadic armed confrontations with gangs and militias affiliated to the regime, assassinations, kidnappings, drug trafficking²⁵Watch “Captagon: Inside Syria’s drug trafficking empire” by BBC World Service Documentaries – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DaOxf13O0 (EN)…

In the spring of 2022, the gang of Raji Falhout, a notorious trafficker, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of some twenty residents of Suwayda and Dera’a²⁶https://www.facebook.com/Suwayda24/photos/pb.100064794576009.-2207520000/2097785973734342/?type=3 before his men stormed the swimming pool in Suwayda’s al-Maqous district to kidnap its users, provoking an armed confrontation with the residents²⁷https://suwayda24.com/?p=19288 (AR).

Raji Falhout’s card as a member of the Intelligence Service Division n°2017.

Following this incident, an uprising broke out on July 26 in the town of Shahba following the kidnapping of a resident, Jad al-Taweel, by Falhout’s gang²⁸https://suwayda24.com/?p=19589 (AR) ; https://suwayda24.com/?p=19611 (AR). Residents led by the “Men for Dignity” Movement blocked the roads and arrested military intelligence agents affiliated with the local organized crime²⁹https://www.opensanctions.org/entities/NK-Do5hgZ5JS8hTfGJbyQvr6J/ (EN) before taking up arms against the Falhout gang, leaving 24 people dead on the residents’ side and 12 on the gang’s side. The gang’s headquarters in the towns of Salim and Atil were then stormed by residents of numerous villages in the region, leading to the capture of the premises, the release of hostages, and the discovery of Captagon production equipments³⁰https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2161930727319866&set=pb.100064794576009.-2207520000, revealing the Assad clan’s complicity with organized crime, using the 4th Military Intelligence Division and Hezbollah as middlemen³¹https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66002450 (EN). Over the past decade, these regime-affiliated gangs have been responsible for numerous kidnappings and assassinations, causing insecurity and violence to destabilize the region.

People from Suwayda gathering to raid the Falhout gang

Captagon production

After the eradication of the Falhout gang and its affiliated gangs, kidnapping and car theft operations in the Suwayda region significantly decreased³²https://suwayda24.com/?p=19955 (AR), and this victory over organized crime has proven the capacity of the Druze community to ensure its own security.

ENDEMIC CRISIS AND SEEDS OF REVOLT

Over and above the direct consequences of the civil war, and then of the imperialist wars waged in Syria by the major powers (Iran, Russia, Turkey, Israel, the United States, Qatar, Saudi Arabia…)³³Since 2011, over 600,000 people have been killed in the conflict, more than half of them civilians. Five million Syrians have left the country, while almost 8 million have been internally displaced. While Russia and Turkey intervene militarily on Syrian territory, most other powers intervene through militias or by providing financial and material aid to the various armed groups active in the conflict. Iran openly supports the Syrian regime, notably by guaranteeing the support of its militias, the main one being Hezbollah., Syria has been in an unprecedented economic slump for ten years. The population was initially subjected to rationing of basic resources and foodstuffs, such as water, gas, petrol, fuel oil, bread, sugar, oil, rice, tea and onions, obtained with the help of a ration card (the smart card), before abolishing this support for essential goods, leaving the population obliged to buy these commodities at market prices. The value of a Syrian pound has risen from $1 = 47 SYR in 2011 to 500 SYR in 2017, and climbed from 2,500 to 14,000 SYR by the summer of 2023, with an above average salary of 200,000 SYR ($14). In summer 2023, the food prices reached unprecented level : 1L oil = 30000 SYR, 1L milk = 6000 SYP, 1kg flour = 4500 SYR, 1kg tomato = 4000 SYR, 1kg potatoe = 6500 SYR, 1kg onions = 3500 SYR, 1kg cucumber = 4000 SYR, one egg = 2000 SYP. This means that the majority of Syrians have spent their entire salary in less than a week. As for electricity, two years ago it was delivered to the Suwayda region as part of a daily rationing program (three hours on, three hours off), before this short window was reduced to an hour and a half on, versus six or seven hours off, not to mention the numerous power cuts occurring during this time, causing the rapid degradation of electronic devices whose purchase or fixing prices are unaffordable.

In recent years, Russian military police have regularly attempted to act as peacekeepers to ease tensions generated by the economical crisis. Its presence was confirmed in 2021 in Suwayda governorate, when a delegation of Russian officers presented themselves to the population with the intention of recruiting deputies from the population of both governorates³⁴https://npasyria.com/en/65789/ (EN). The Russian contingent based in Bosra, located between Suwayda and Dera’a, made several attempts to distribute food aid in 2021 to Shahba and in 2022 to Dhibin, but residents firmly rejected their humanitarian intervention³⁵https://syrianobserver.com/news/75404/widely-condemned-russian-delegation-enters-town-in-suweida-under-pretext-of-aid.html (EN).

Between 2020 and 2023, spontaneous and short-lived demonstrations regularly took place in Suwayda, but were either not renewed or were repressed. In February and April 2022, protesters blocked the roads, stormed the governorate building, and set fire to a military vehicle before security forces opened fire on demonstrators, killing one and injuring 18³⁶https://suwayda24.com/?p=20325 (AR). Nevertheless, in December 2022, protesters managed to storm the governorate building for the second time, while their slogans and protest signs were mainly demanding a “decent life”, after the allocations of gas and electricity had been reduced. Throughout the winter and spring of 2023, rallies continued under pressure from Baath Party members actions, who attempted to organize pro-regime demonstrations in order to intimidate the protesters.

Meanwhile, the Assad regime returned to the fold of the Arab League following diplomatic meetings in Cairo on May 7, 2023, and the Arab League Summit in Riyadh on May 19³⁷https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/7/arab-league-agrees-to-bring-syria-back-into-its-fold (EN), as well as a Chinese-brokered deal to reestablish ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia in order to defuse the proxy war these two countries are waging in Syria and Yemen³⁸https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/03/what-you-need-know-about-chinas-saudi-iran-deal (EN). In exchange for this return of favor, Bashar al-Assad committed himself to tackling drug trafficking on his borders with Jordan and Iraq³⁹https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/1/syria-agrees-to-curb-drug-trade-in-arab-ministers-meeting (EN). The day after the Cairo agreement, Jordan sent a clear message to the Syrian authorities by carrying out an air strike on the personal home of drug trafficker Marai al-Ramthan in Al-Shaab, south of the Suwayda governorate, killing him, his wife and six children, as well as an Iran-linked (handled by Hezbollah) drug facility in Kharab al-Shahem in the nearby Dera’a governorate⁴⁰https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/8/sohr-attack-that-killed-drug-trafficker-in-syria-was-by-jordan (EN).

AND THE FUSE CAUGHT FIRE…

On August 5, 2023, a collective emerged in the coastal governorates of Latakia and Tartus, issuing an ultimatum to the regime by August 10⁴¹https://www.newarab.com/news/who-are-syrias-new-opposition-group-10-august-movement (EN), demanding reforms and making public a list of demands in application of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 which was adopted in Geneva in 2015. A particular feature of the movement is that it has developed in regions with a strong Alawite community, to which Bashar al-Assad belongs, notably in the towns of Tartus, Latakia, Banias and Jableh, where thousands of leaflets have been distributed⁴²https://en.majalla.com/node/297431/politics/alawite-protest-movement-emerging-syrias-coastal-areas (EN). In response, Bashar al-Assad raised civil employees’ salaries by 100% but simultaneously announced the abolition of petrol subsidies and an increase in fuel prices, with the price of a liter of petrol rising sharply from 3,000 to 8,000 Syrian pounds, an increase of 167%, and the price of fuel from 700 to 2,000 Syrian pounds, an increase of 186%. Syrians’ exorbitant transport budgets are making daily life impossible and forcing thousands of Syrians to stop going to work. Faced with the rise in resignations in the public sector, the regime has responded by tightening the conditions of resignation. Meanwhile, the regime has announced its intention to abolish subsidies on all consumer goods by 2024⁴³https://alsifr.org/syria-protests (AR).

In the wake of these announcements, a call for a general strike was issued in southern Syria⁴⁴https://suwayda24.com/?p=21730 (AR) ; https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/strike-protests-in-syrias-sweida-enter-second-day (EN). Since August 16, more than 52 communes in southern Syria have witnessed demonstrations using various types of action: strikes, vigils, blocking roads, closing government institutions, etc.

Demonstrations of support took place in the governorates of Idlib, Dera’a and Aleppo, as well as in Jaramana, the predominantly Druze district of Rural Damascus, reviving the slogans of 2011 for the fall of Assad : “Syria is ours, not Assad’s”, “one, one, one, the Syrian people are one” and “the people want the fall of the regime”. The demonstrators also expressed their wish to see an end to the Iranian presence in Syria.

On August 25, demonstrations spreaded to Idleb, Aleppo, Azaz, Afrin and Al-Bab. In several places, demonstrators waved the Druze, Kurdish and Syrian Revolution flags together. While the regime’s forces did not overreact in Suwayda governorate, they did open fire in Aleppo and Dera’a, killing at least two people. The Syrian Human Rights Network also reports the arrest of 57 people in connection with the protests, mainly in the governorate of Lattakia et Tartus⁴⁵https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2023/08/26/revolution-reborn/ (EN).

Protesters show Syrian Revolution, Kurdish, Shia, Druze, Sunni, Christian and Syrian national flags in the city of Suwayda.

Since then demonstrations in Suwayda’s central square, long since renamed “Dignity Square” (al-Karami) by the population, have been weekly, if not daily, and have grown from one Friday to the next, reaching several thousand people a month after the start of the revolt, on September 22. Baath Party offices and a number of government offices were closed by the demonstrators during the protests, while banners and portraits of Bashar al-Assad were destroyed and burned.

The governorate building with Hafez al-Assad’s picture set in flames.

Meanwhile, on September 14, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, Firas al-Assad⁴⁶Firas’ father, Rifaat, commanded the armed forces responsible for the Hama massacre in 1982, before attempting a coup against his brother, Bashar al-Assad’s father, in 1984. Exiled to France, he finally returned to Syria in 2021 after being granted an amnesty by his nefew and found guilty by French courts of embezzling and laundering money for the Syrian regime. All his assets were seized, worth an estimated 90 million euros, including two Parisian townhouses, a stud farm, 40 apartments, 7300 square metres of office space in Lyon and a chateau., published a video in which he condemned the regime and expressed his support for the demonstrators⁴⁷https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmCRl-Hkn94 (AR). This video follows that of Majd Jadaan, Maher al-Assad’s sister-in-law⁴⁸Maher is Bashar’s brother and General commander of the Republican Guard and the regime’s Military Intelligence. He is the regime’s second strongman, directly responsible for the Shabihas militia and the captagon traffic organized by the military intelligence services, in particular the Fourth Armored Division., fiercely denouncing the crimes of the Assad clan from Jordan and hailing the revolt of the people of Suwayda against the regime⁴⁹https://youtu.be/IobX1vxHkDY (AR). Interviews of actors of the revolt were also made public, such as that of the leader of the “Men of Dignity Movement” in Suwayda, Sheikh Abu Hassan Yahya Al-Hajjar⁵⁰https://suwayda24.com/?p=20610 (AR), or the activist and lawyer Adel al-Hadi⁵¹https://hawarnews.com/en/haber/developments-in-as-suwayda-to-where-h37625.html (EN).

IN THE CHAOS OF THE PROXY WAR

Despite twelve years of revolt and civil war, the Syrian regime is still in power. If it has withstood the storms, it is undoubtedly thanks to the interventions of Iran, ISIS and Russia, each of which, in their own ways, helped to make the Revolution so desired by the Syrian people impossible. To this we can add Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, who for their part have succeeded in creating division within the democratic and secular forces of the Free Syrian Army by favoring, as mentioned earlier, the most reactionary and least democratic forces of the rebellion against the regime.

The United States, for its part, which is responsible for the birth and development of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, both born on the still-smoldering rubble of Afghan and Iraqi societies, chose in 2011 (the year of its official withdrawal from Iraq) to no longer participate directly with its armed forces in conflicts in the Middle East. For all that, after condemning the repression of the 2011 protests and imposing sanctions against the Assad regime, the United States launched its first air strikes in Syria in September 2014⁵²https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/23/statement-president-airstrikes-syria (EN) and, from 2015, sponsored the new Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of 25,000 Kurdish fighters from the YPG/YPJ and 5,000 Arab fighters, with the stated aim of halting the advance of the Islamic State. Initially spared, the Syrian regime finally underwent US strikes in 2017 and 2018, in retaliation for the Syrian army’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in Douma (Damascus) and Khan Cheikhoun (Idlib)⁵³https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Timeline-of-Syrian-Chemical-Weapons-Activity (EN) ; https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2023/01/opcw-releases-third-report-investigation-and-identification-team (EN). That same year, two-thirds of the American troops deployed on Syrian soil were brought back in agreement with Turkey, which then decided to launch an offensive in the Kurdish-controlled border zone in order to establish a “security zone” there⁵⁴https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/fff9400a-a0b3-4ff4-be05-e18d00a046cf (EN). Nevertheless, the United States maintained a strong presence in Syria; in 2021, it carried out a series of air strikes against Hezbollah and its Iraqi allies, including Hachd al-Chaabi, who were held responsible for attacks against “western interests” in Iraq⁵⁵https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-carries-out-air-strikes-against-iran-backed-militia-iraq-syria-2021-06-27/ (EN).

Russia, which has been one of the Syrian regime’s main military backers since 2015, was diverted by its invasion of Ukraine, which didn’t go exactly as Putin would have liked. It had to withdraw a significant part of its contingent from Syrian territory⁵⁶By 2020, Russia had control over 75 sites in Syria, including 23 military bases, 42 points of presence and 10 observation points. While an estimated 63,000 Russian military personnel were deployed in Syria between 2015 and 2018, on the eve of the war in Ukraine this number appears to have fallen to 20,000 – https://daraj.media/108925/ (AR) ; https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/russian-forces-in-syria-and-the-building-of-a-sustainable-military-presence-i/ (EN) to redeploy it in eastern Ukraine, while the 250 to 450 Wagner mercenaries operating notably in the Syrian governorates of Homs and Deir ez-Zor, remaining without leadership since the Prigozhine mutiny, were reportedly ordered to report to their base in Hmeimim (Latakia governorate) and return to the authority of the Russian military command⁵⁷The main Russian military bases in Syria are located in Tartus, Hmeimim (Latakia) and since 2019 in Qamishli (Al-Hasakah).. Some of those who refused were possibly sent back to Russia or redeployed to Mali. As a result of the withdrawal of Russian troops, some of the military bases under their control were transferred to the Iranian armed forces, notably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. However, Russia retains its military forces in Syria and has no intention of relinquishing its share of influence in the region, particularly in the face of Iran, which remains its main competitor there.

Iran, which has been the primary supporter of the Assad regime since the reign of Bashar’s father, Hafez, remains the key player in the Syrian war. Without the military support of Iranian militias, the main one being the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Assad regime would probably not have been able to hold out, not least because of Hezbollah’s involvement in the trafficking of Captagon, one of the regime’s main resources. After denying their presence in Syria, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah ended up openly supporting the Assad regime, calling it both a “jihad against Sunni extremists” and a “necessary intervention to protect Palestine and resist Israel”. In the propaganda of Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, unconditional support for the liberation of the Palestinian people is a mirage that works well, particularly among the Western left⁵⁸https://alsifr.org/syria-protests (AR). Where one might have expected unanimous support for the Syrian revolution from the majority of revolutionary left-wing forces, a resounding silence responded to the chants of the Syrian demonstrators. In the naive imagination of the left, Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah (and Hamas) militias constitute an indisputable bulwark against American imperialism and Israeli colonialism. In reality, Hezbollah’s main concern is to maintain its quasi-hegemonic hold on Lebanese society while working frantically to keep Syria within Iran’s zone of influence, on which its entire survival depends. Between 2013 and 2018, the Syrian regime’s siege⁵⁹See the film “Little Palestine”, by Abdallah al-Khatib – https://youtu.be/GbpxMFNuYVY (AR / FR) and then violent eradication of the world’s largest Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp (suburb of Damascus)⁶⁰Before 2013, the Yarmouk camp was home to over 160,000 Palestinian refugees., which can easily be considered an operation of ethnic cleansing carried out with the complicity of Hezbollah and Palestinian movements like PFLP and Hamas⁶¹Hamas militants in Yarmouk initially fought the Assad regime until 2013, when Hamas timidly criticized the intervention against the Yarmouk camp, before maintaining a position of neutrality, due to its financial and military dependence on Hezbollah. Hamas also maintains its headquarters in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Dahiyeh, Lebanon., is enough to disqualify the latter’s propaganda as to the reality of their struggle for the emancipation of the Palestinian people.

Israel, without intervening militarily on Syrian soil, has never stopped launching drone strikes on Iranian infrastructures in Syria. In fact, not a month goes by without rockets hitting Hezbollah buildings or executives, the militia being the main concern of the Israeli regime. Yet, Israel has never shown any willingness to support the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people. If we look at the situation rationally, we understand that Israel has no interest in the establishment of a democratic society in an Arab country on its borders, as any democratic progress in the region would naturally lead to Arab solidarity with the Palestinians and a threat to Israel’s apartheid regime. In fact, the Assad regime and Hezbollah have largely contributed to restricting the political organization and resistance of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria⁶²https://alsifr.org/syria-protests (AR), which is not to Israel’s displeasure.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN NEXT ?

Like the Syrian people as a whole in 2011, the Suwayda demonstrators can hardly win a revolution without external support or a large uprising of the Syrian population in the main other governorates.

As for the Free Syrian Army, it’s hard to expect enthusiastic support for the Druze uprising, given that the aspiration of the majority of the current fighting groups remains the establishment of an Islamic caliphate that is difficult to reconcile with the democratic and secular aspirations of the Suwayda protesters. Nevertheless, in all the governorates, whether under the control of the regime or the rebels, there are still remnants of democratic movements who see the Druze insurrection as an immense source of hope. This is why those who still believe in a non-confessional, democratic society have spontaneously taken to the streets of various towns to express their solidarity with Suwayda, whether they be Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Christians, Syriacs, Arabs or Kurds.

Here again, one would expect Kurdish organizations, which have managed to maintain their autonomous status in a good quarter of the country and proclaim loud and clear that they are driven by a revolutionary, universalist and democratic project, to express more strong and unconditional support for their brothers and sisters in Suwayda. But beyond a communiqué from the women of the Syrian Democratic Council calling for Syrian women to take the political issue into their own hands, we haven’t heard much from the Kurdish revolutionary movements. This suggests that, in accordance to their well-established autonomy, the Kurds don’t feel much concern for what’s happening south of the Euphrates, whether the fate of the rest of the Syrian people or that of the Palestinians. It’s sad to see the extent to which solidarity with other struggling communities is not perceived as a sine qua non for the survival of the project for Democracy in the Middle East. Moreover, recent events in Deir ez-Zor have done little to bolster Arab confidence in the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG): between August 27 and September 7, the Syrian Democratic Forces, largely dominated by the YPG, clashed with local Arab factions affiliated to the Deir ez-Zor Military Council following the dismissal and arrest of an Arab senior commander of the SDF, Ahmed al-Khubail also know as Rashid Abu Khawla. Although the sanctions taken against him were justified in view of the accusations of corruption and drug trafficking made against him by the local population, the arrest fueled the anger of its supporters, who launched an assault on the SDF, resulting in the death of 90 people over the eleven days the fighting lasted⁶³It was finally under US pressure that a withdrawal and ceasefire agreement was initiated by the FDS, motivated by the fear that ISIS cells, regime forces and pro-Iranian militias would take advantage of the situation to regain ground in the region.. The backdrop to this conflict is the reproach levelled at the Kurds by the local population, who legitimately blame them for their hegemonic control of the area, which is seen as disrespectful considering the Arab majority living there⁶⁴https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syria-deir-ezzor-sdf-fights-arab-tribes-control (EN).

Among the Druze, there is intense debate about the procedure to be followed. A certain mistrust seems to persist with regard to the autonomist and confederalist proposal. Some people see in the autonomist claim a risk of separation from the rest of the Syrians, unable to grasp the difference between autonomy and independence, while others confuse the means with the end: when they are told about establishing democratic assemblies and struggle committees to organize the revolt in the medium term, they think they are being told about a long-term project for society, and find it hard to believe in the people’s capacity for self-organization without mediators and leaders. As a result, political organization in the context of the popular uprising in al-Karami Square is still struggling to take on the form of the Egyptian Tahrir of 2010 or the Ukrainian Maïdan of 2014, when it would perhaps be sufficient to take up the recipes and positive experiences of the 2011 uprising, and in particular that of the Local Committees described by the Syrian anarchist Omar Aziz⁶⁵https://www.fifthestate.org/archive/397-winter-2017/the-legacy-of-omar-aziz/ (EN) ; https://www.syria.tv/عمر-عزيز-يدخل-غيابه-العاشر and set up in many cities at the time. Unfortunately, if no grassroots organizing initiative is put in place, we run the risk of seeing sheikhs and heads of traditional family clans propelled as leaders, to the detriment of lesser-known individuals or collectives driven by more progressive and genuinely emancipatory ideals.

Already, Russian ambassador Anatoly Viktorov has paid a visit to the sheikh of the Druze of Galilee (Israel) Muwafaq Tarif⁶⁶https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/2023/9/21/انتفاضة-السويداء-مستمرة-اتصالات, while American representatives French Hill, Joe Wilson and Brendan Boyle have called on phone the sheikh of Suwayda Hikmat Al-Hijri⁶⁷https://syrianobserver.com/news/85155/american-senator-reaches-out-to-sheikh-al-hijri-in-suweida.html (EN) ; https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/us-news/2023/09/21/us-politicians-speak-to-druze-leader-sheikh-al-hajari-as-anti-assad-protests-continue/ (EN), trying to initiate negotiations with the Druze community to ensure that the outcome of the revolt would be in line with their interests in the region. Nor should we doubt that Saudi butcher Mohammed Ben Salman, who is conducting diplomatic dealings on all sides with Iran, China, Israel, the United States and France, will also come to shake up the region’s future, so much does his interest in weaponry acquisition and uranium enrichment outweigh the fate of the people, whether Syrian or Palestinian. For the Saudi tyrant, it obviously doesn’t matter that these peoples remain caged, as long as they are martyred in silence and don’t disturb usual business. And that’s not counting Bashar al-Assad’s recent visit to Beijing at the invitation of Chinese despot Xi Jinping, to break out of his isolation and secure China’s support for a deal to “rebuild” Syria. The very act of all these vultures is enough to generate suspicion and speculation, which cannot be beneficial to the popular movement underway. In view of the chaos that the various states have generated in Iraq and Syria over the last twenty years, we can legitimately say that only solutions implemented by the people for the people can hope to lead to a semblance of peace and democracy. For now, the people of Suwayda have categorically refused to join under any banner that has political or economic interests in Syria. Let’s hope it will last and succeed in this way !