How the US and Israel partnered with Syria’s new president to massacre the Druze

As video after video of horrendous atrocities spreads on social media from the governorate of Suwayda in Syria, evidence indicates that the Syrian government’s sectarian slaughter of the Druze religious minority was orchestrated by the US and Israel.

The massacres are part of a broader effort to force the Druze to seek protection from Israel and thereby give the Jewish state a pretext to further occupy Syria’s south, establish David’s Corridor, and keep the country weak and divided.

Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former ISIS commander long groomed by the US and UK to take power in Damascus, proved a reliable agent in executing the plan.

A campaign to crush the Druze

The violence in Suwayda began on Sunday 13 July, when local Bedouins kidnapped a Druze fruit seller on the road between Suwayda and Damascus. The situation quickly escalated with clashes breaking out between Bedouin militias and armed Druze factions.

On Tuesday 15 July, Sharaa ordered the Syrian army and internal security forces to deploy to the region, under the pretext of halting the clashes and restoring security and civil peace.

However, rather than seek to stop the fighting, Sharaa’s forces joined Bedouin armed groups. Saying that they “came to fight the Druze,” Syrian forces carried out the brutal massacre of hundreds of Druze civilians, attacked Druze cultural symbols, and systematically looted and burned Druze homes.

“On Tuesday morning, units from Syria’s Ministries of Defense and Interior stormed into the city of Suwayda, citing efforts to halt an outbreak of communal violence. Instead, what followed was a blood-soaked escalation,” Media Line reported.

“The violence worsened sharply after the arrival of government forces,” journalists from Reuters similarly wrote, while citing Suwayda residents who said the killings were carried out by Syrian troops, “identified by their fatigues and the insignia on them.”

Government supporters also acknowledged Sharaa’s security forces were sent to participate in the slaughter, rather than end it.

Former Nusra Front leader, Saleh al-Hamwi, criticized Sharaa for claiming his forces intervened to break up clashes between Druze “outlaw groups” and the Bedouins.

“This is not true,” Hamwi wrote on X. “The authority entered with its army and security forces as a party against the militias of [Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al-Hijri].”

Sectarian massacres

Thousands of reports, pictures, and videos have now circulated online showing Druze civilians being executed, beheaded, kidnapped, and humiliated by government and tribal fighters.

Videos and photos of government and tribal fighters humiliating captured Druze men by shaving off their traditional moustaches and murdering them soon gave way to even more shocking videos. Syrian forces filmed themselves cutting off the heads of corpses with knives, executing unarmed Druze men in the street after demanding to know their religion, massacring entire families in their homes, and abducting women to take as slaves.

One man was strapped to a chair and burned alive, while another man was killed along with his family as he sat in his wheelchair at home.

A shocking video spread online of the corpses of 15 unarmed Druze in the guesthouse of the prominent Al-Radwan family.

Maan Radwan, whose relatives were killed in the shooting, told the Guardian, “They were sitting there drinking coffee when gunmen came in and just started shooting. There are no weapons allowed in the hall, it’s not like it’s a military base.”

Video emerged showing dozens of bodies of Druze who had been massacred in the National Hospital in Suwayda city.

Palestinian journalist Wael Essam, who covered the 14-year war on Syria for Al-Quds al-Arabi, reported that, according to sources with the Syrian government, the massacre was carried out by members of a government-linked faction, Ansar al-Tawhid (Division 82), against wounded Druze militiamen and accompanying civilians.

Israel ‘intervenes’

Claiming to defend the Druze, Israel intervened dramatically on Wednesday 16 July by bombing government buildings in the heart of Damascus, including the Ministry of Defense and near the Presidential Palace.

The first bomb hit its target during a live news broadcast filmed in a TV studio overlooking Umayyad Square.

Israel also bombed Syrian tanks that were dispatched to Suwayda.

Sharaa mobilizes the tribes

Despite the Israeli intervention, some 500 Druze had been killed in Suwayda city by the morning of Thursday, 17 July alone, most of them civilians killed in their homes, Al-Daraj reported.

Al-Daraj notes that despite this, a media campaign was launched to claim it was the Druze who were guilty of carrying out massacres. The campaign included the spread of fabricated photos allegedly showing Druze atrocities against local Bedouins.

Almost immediately, formal Syrian forces were joined in Suwayda by 7,000 to 10,000 Arab fighters from the Al-Oqaydat and Al-Nu’aim tribes, who traveled over 700 miles from Deir Ezzor, allegedly to take revenge against the Druze, even though these tribes had no relation to Arab tribes in Suwayda.

Al-Daraj reports tribal fighters traveled from areas in Deir Ezzor controlled not only by Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), but also by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The fighters easily passed through checkpoints controlled by both groups.

The mobilization was led by high-ranking members of the Syrian government from each tribe, including Mohammed Al-Jassim “Abu Amsha,” a prominent commander in the Ministry of Defense whose forces led the massacres of Alawite civilians on the Syrian coast in March, Hussein Al-Salameh, the Syrian Minister of Intelligence, and Youssef Al-Hajr, a prominent leader in HTS.

“The pattern of tribal mobilization, the method of fighter movement, and their rapid arrival through security and military checkpoints show that it was not a spontaneous or retaliatory response, but part of a well-thought-out alternative plan, implemented immediately after the failure of the first attack on Suwayda,” Al-Daraja concluded.

While the SDF, an ally of the US and Israel, allowed the tribal fighters to pass through their checkpoints, the Israeli air force took no action to bomb their convoys as they traveled for hours across the open Syrian desert.

The US and Israeli role

Wael Essam also reported that the Syrian government's assault on Suwayda was pre-planned.

Essam wrote on Thursday, 17 July, that “Government forces had been preparing to storm Suwayda for a week, using the Bedouin story as a pretext.”

Citing sources within the Syrian government, Essam stated that Mukhtar al-Turki and Abu al-Hassan al-Urduni were the commanders supervising preparations for the attack, under the direct supervision of Sharaa.

Not only was the assault on Suwayda prepared in advance, but Sharaa and his military commanders were encouraged to launch it by US officials.

“The security apparatus received false information from sources close to the Americans that the Israelis would not intervene, no matter what happened in Suwayda. The Ministry of Defense continued its advance, contrary to the prior understanding with the Americans and Israelis,” Wael Essam reported further.

Sharaa would not have launched the attack on Suwayda without permission from the US and Israel because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had previously vowed to defend the Druze in Suwayda and demanded that southern Syria remain a “demilitarized zone.”

Additionally, Israel’s bombing of the Ministry of Defense near Umayyad Square was coordinated with Turkish intelligence to ensure no important Syrian military officials would be killed.

“Before bombing the General Staff headquarters, the Turks informed a number of government officials of the need to leave their positions and evacuate their families from Damascus,” Essam added.

Sharaa receives a ‘green light’

Two days later, additional details emerged indicating the US and Israel had urged Sharaa to attack Suwayda.

“Damascus believed it had a green light from both the US and Israel to dispatch its forces south despite months of Israeli warnings not to do so,” Reuters reported on 19 July.

“Syria's government misread how Israel would respond to its troops deploying to the country's south this week, encouraged by U.S. messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state,” eight sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Reuters explained further that the understanding was based on “public and private” comments from US special envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack, “as well as on nascent security talks with Israel” in Baku, Azerbaijan.

It is highly unlikely, however, that Sharaa and his military staff “misread” or “misunderstood” US and Israeli messaging so badly. As noted by Reuters, Syrian and Israeli officials were in direct communication as part of “nascent security talks” taking place in Azerbaijan.

The talks “produced an understanding over the deployment of troops to southern Syria to bring Suwayda under government control,” Reuters added, again indicating that preparations were underway to assault and take control of Suwayda a week before the attack was launched, and that Druze conflict with the Bedouins was only a pretext.

Additionally, Syrian authorities were coordinating directly with their Israeli counterparts when they deployed tanks to Suwayda.

Axios reported on Wednesday, 16 July, that according to a US official, “Syria had notified Israel in advance about the tanks and said its response was not directed at Israel.”

Despite this clear coordination, the Israeli military bombed the tanks, claiming in a statement that they entered a zone that Israel demanded be demilitarized and that “Israel will not allow a massacre of Druze in Syria."

This explanation is unlikely, given the close coordination between both sides and Sharaa’s clear insistence on not fighting occupying Israeli troops.

Additionally, despite providing some help to Druze fighters, Israel did allow a massacre of Druze civilians to take place.

Israel gives another ‘green light’

Two days later, on Friday 18 June, as terrified Druze continued to wait in vain for Israel and the US to intervene forcefully to stop the slaughter, Israel enabled additional massacres by announcing it would allow “limited entry” of Syrian forces into Suwayda for “48 hours.”

That night, Sharaa announced he would “deploy a force in the south dedicated to ending the clashes,” Reuters wrote, repeating the lie that the Syrian president and former ISIS commander was trying to stop the killing.

Israel allowed government forces to reenter Suwayda, even though it was widely understood, including from Reuters' previous reporting, that the fighters from the Ministry of Defense and Internal Security had been leading the massacres.

The Israeli green light allowing Syrian government-affiliated forces to once again enter Suwayda and begin the killing anew was revealed in the same Reuters report.

The agency reports that its reporters observed a convoy of fighters from Syria's General Security, who were stopped on a road in Deraa province, “awaiting a final green light to enter Suwayda.”

“But thousands of Bedouin fighters were still pouring into Suwayda on Friday, the Reuters reporters said, prompting fears among residents that violence would continue unabated.”

‘Tribal’ fighters?

The next morning, Saturday 18 July, a new ceasefire was announced following meetings between Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al-Hijri and US, Syrian, and Jordanian officials in Amman.

However, a Syrian journalist who visited several villages in Suwayda on Sunday, 19 July, told The Cradle that Syrian security forces continued to allow Arab tribal fighters and Bedouin looters to pass their checkpoints to enter Druze villages and Suwayda city.

Some of the Arab tribal fighters with whom the journalist spoke boasted that they were employed by the Ministry of Defense but were not wearing their uniforms.

While fighting informally as part of tribal militias, they used weapons distributed by the Ministry of Defense, including drones, heavy machine guns, Grad missiles, and sniper rifles.

As videos online also confirm, the journalist said many wore ISIS patches, including one man from General Security whom he managed to photograph. They expressed their admiration for the terror organization’s former leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the desire to crush the Druze in the name of Islam.

What does Israel want?

Despite statements by Syrian, Israeli, and US officials claiming they wished to protect the Druze, we are expected to believe that global powers were somehow unable to stop Arab and Bedouin tribes from entering Suwayda to continue the looting and killing.

In reality, Israel and the United States not only allowed the sectarian slaughter in Suwayda to unfold, but directly orchestrated it in coordination with Sharaa.

Because the massacres were so horrific, more and more Druze now believe they have no choice but to turn to Israel, hoping the Jewish state will protect them from the ISIS-linked forces ruling Damascus.

The more the Druze turn to Israel, the more they are perceived as “traitors” by many of Syria’s Sunnis, further deepening the country’s sectarian divide.

Israel is now positioned to use its claimed “protection” of the Druze as a pretext to expand its occupation of southern Syria, including Suwayda, and to establish the so-called David’s Corridor linking the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to the US military base at Al-Tanf, to its Kurdish allies in the SDF in northeast Syria, and onward into Iraq.

While discussing Israel’s initial green light, Reuters itself observed that the massacres of Druze in Suwayda will soon serve long-standing Israeli objectives.

“With more blood spilt and distrust of Sharaa's government high among minorities,” there are “real fears that Syria is heading towards being broken up into statelets,” the agency wrote, citing a senior Gulf official. This aligned with Israel’s goal to keep Syria “weak and decentralized," the agency added.

In short, Israel used a classic mafia tactic. Just like a mob boss who sends his thugs to terrorize a shop owner before demanding payment for “protection,” Israel now presents itself as the savior of a crisis it helped create, using the bloodshed in Suwayda to legitimize permanent occupation and redraw the map of southern Syria to its advantage.

https://thecradle.co/articles/how-the-us-and-israel-partnered-with-syrias-new-president-to-massacre-the-druze