ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces were denied access to Syria’s southern Suwayda province after local Druze militias demanded they turn back, local media reported on Wednesday. “A military convoy of dozens of vehicles belonging to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and its general security service entered Suwayda Governorate,” local media outlet Suwayda 24 reported on Tuesday, adding that local forces “demanded that the convoy returns to Damascus.” Suwayda is controlled by the the Druze Rijal al-Karama (Men of Dignity) militia which was established during the Syrian conflict to protect the minority group from the threat posed by Islamic State (ISIS) militants and the former Bashar al-Assad regime’s affiliated forces. The report added that “the factions asked the military convoy to return to Damascus and not to enter the province secretly,” emphasizing that there is regular communication with Suwayda and Damascus security authorities. “We will not hand over our weapons until the state, constitution, and government are formed and the decentralized system is the most appropriate system for Syria,” Hikmat Salman al-Hijri, the spiritual leader of the Druze, told Rudaw. He stressed that laying down arms depends on guaranteeing their constitutional rights. Fearing an uncertain future, many Druze residents of Suwayda near the Israeli border have called for annexation of their region to Israel. The Druze are a non-Islamic religious minority estimated at one million, with nearly 150,000 of them living in Israel as citizens. “We cooperate with the new Syrian administration with all sincerity,” the Doha-based al-Jazeera channel reported Hijri as saying, adding that the incident “was due to lack of prior coordination.” Protests over poor living conditions have regularly taken place in the Druze-majority Suwayda since August 2023, driven by a surge in prices after the former Assad regime decided to end fuel subsidies. The demonstrators then called for the overthrow of Assad’s government. After the HTS-led coalition overthrew the Assad regime, they formed a transitional government headed by Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) who has repeatedly stated that the rights of all components will be protected under the new government. “Decentralization, today, has become a legitimate demand for the people of Suwayda, after decades of excluding the people of this region from influential political and economic roles in the Syrian state,” Syrian journalist Nawras Aziz told Rudaw. He said that the people of Suwayda are willing to disarm given the formation of a “legitimate government and new civil law.” The new Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, a top HTS commander, has expressed that they do not wish to have federalism in the country or to have any area outside the government’s authority. On Monday, a delegation from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control northeast Syria (Rojava) held their first meeting with the country's de facto leader Sharaa in Damascus, discussing the future of Kurdish-held areas. SDF chief Mazloum Abdi told Asharq Al-Awsat in a recent interview that they are willing to merge the SDF into the new Syrian army if both sides agree on a “suitable formula through negotiations.”
