Minority Druze community wonder if new Syrian government will end struggles

Live updates: Follow the latest on Syria

The ancient wheat fields of southern Syria transform into a rugged basalt rock landscape on the approach to Suweida, home to many of the country’s Druze minority. The harsh landscape is a good metaphor for the group's struggle for preservation as a sect; the hallmark of its existence in the country since arriving from Lebanon two centuries ago.

The Druze have survived persecution by the French and the Ottomans, and retribution for a failed coup by a Druze officer against the country’s Alawite rulers in the 1960s, as well as the 13 years of civil war that preceded the downfall of Bashar Al Assad on December 8. Now the Druze are watching and waiting to find out if their struggle is over, or if it will be renewed under a new government.

“We have all spearheaded this liberation from tyranny,” Syria’s Druze spiritual leader Hikmat Al Hijiri told visitors on Sunday. Syria must transform into a “democratic and civil state, not one that mimics [the ousted regime]", he said.

Mr Al Assad was brought down by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), an Al Qaeda offshoot, as they swept from areas in northern Syria they had run according to their strict interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence. Many of the militants view the Druze – whose religion contains elements of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism – as heretics, although HTS leader Ahmad Al Shara has repeatedly signalled that no harm will come to members of the country’s many minorities unless they were complicit in the crimes of the former regime.

But a previous iteration of HTS, called Jabhat Al Nusra, beheaded at least two dozen Druze civilians as they encroached on Suweida at various stages in the civil war.

Syria is majority Sunni, with the Druze accounting for around 800,000 of the country’s 20 million pre-civil war population. There are no fresh demographic estimates as yet. Their nature as a transnational minority across Syria, Lebanon and Israel could also tie their future to any geopolitical changes following the downfall of the Assad regime.

Already Jordan and other Arab countries, as well as the United States and Europe, have said there will be no international support for any new order in Syria if it supports terrorism. Previously Jordan was wary of the spread of pro-Iranian militias on its border with southern Syria. HTS’s militants have replaced them. Few Druze in Suweida are willing to talk about the issue publicly, preferring to defer to the line shaped by Sheikh Al Hijri.

“We have full confidence in those who have the reigns now,” Sheikh Al Hijri said, adding that the Druze militia in Suweida, called Rijal Al Karamah, have set up “co-ordination rooms” with HTS to maintain stability in the area. HTS has already deployed its own men to oversee the water authority and agriculture department in the province.

He tinged his words with a reminder that the Druze, he said, will continue to defend “our land and our honour”. Sheikh Al Hijri steered the community away from joining in the suppression of the 2011 peaceful revolt against Mr Al Assad as most young Druze dodged conscription. In August 2022, he supported a civil disobedience movement in Suweida that demanded the dictator's removal, which lasted until he was ousted last week.

In Suweida, life has continued as normal, with no signs of militarisation. People who demonstrated against the regime, and others who stayed on the sidelines, have been celebrating his downfall with rallies and street song and dance.

Businesses remained open well into the night in Suweida city, and the Druze militia had vacated roadblocks at the entrance to avoid any conflict with HTS. One night this week, a bearded HTS fighter stopped at a pharmacy to buy paracetamol. Raghida Samih, a Druze pharmacist, handed it to him while exchanging pleasantries. “Suweida is safer now than before,” Ms Samih said, pointing out that the pro-regime militia, called shabiha, had disappeared.

A Druze cleric who gave his name as Sheikh Jamal said he had met twice with an HTS delegation headed by an official assigned to liaise with minorities. “He assured us that we will keep our own civil affairs courts,” Sheikh Jamal said. “When I asked him what about the criminal and other legal codes and how much Sharia will be applied, he fudged the question.”

A member of the inner circle of Sheikh Al Hijri said that despite the mutual overtures between HTS and the Druze leadership, Sheikh Al Hijri knows an iron fist could be hiding under the velvet glove of HTS. “Throughout history, we have done whatever it takes to survive,” he said, adding that the coalescing of the community to deal with the HTS takeover extends beyond Syria.

He pointed out intensified contacts between Sheikh Al Hijri and Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual head of the Israeli Druze, and separately, with Walid Jumblatt, the veteran Lebanese Druze leader, regarded as being among the most astute politicians in the region. The source declined to reveal the content of these discussions and other conversations he said Sheikh Al Hijri is having with governments in the region.

“We are on the cusp of a new Syria, or a new civil war,” he said. “We have to be ready for both.”