Middle East: Reports: Location in Syrian Suwaida under control

After the day-long bloody unrest in Syria between Drusian militias and Sunni-Muslim Bedouin tribes, the situation in the city of Suwaida is reportedly under control. The State Syrian news agency Sana reported on Telegram, citing the Interior Ministry that the city was cleared by all tribal fighters that the clashes in the districts had ended. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights wrote of careful calm on X.

The city of Suwaida is mostly inhabited by Drusen. The Drusen are a religious minority that emerged from Shiite Islam. They live in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for the immediate setting of all fights in the unruermination in southern Syria on the online platform X. The ongoing rapes and the “slaughter of innocent people” should come to an end, he wrote.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the unrest has so far fell victim to almost 1,000 people. This cannot be checked, but the information from the observation center, which pursues the conflict in Syria with a network of informants, are usually considered reliable.

Violence in the south of Syria broke out about a week ago. Troops from the Syrian transitional government intervene. In response, Israel government buildings in Damascus and convoys of the government Army bombed on the way to Suwaida with the declared goal of protecting the Drusen in Syria.

After the fall of Syria’s ex-power holder Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and years of the civil war, the situation in ethnically and religiously diverse Syria remains fragile. Since Assad’s fall, violence has occurred in various parts of the country with sometimes hundreds of deaths.