Syria's Druze invite UN investigators as Al Shara flies to New York

Problems with minority groups persist as new Syrian President seeks support at UN General Assembly

Syrian Druze leader Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri has been a vocal critic of the new government's attempts to establish central control over the country. Reuters

Syria's Druze leadership has invited UN investigators to look into the killing of hundreds of civilians in a government offensive on Sweida as President Ahmad Al Shara left on a trip for New York on Sunday to improve the strategic position of the post-Assad authorities.

The bloodshed in Sweida, and an escalation of hostilities in recent weeks with the Kurds, who control large parts of Syria through the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia, underscore challenges to the consensus among major powers on the need to stabilise the country after the 13 years of civil war.

Mr Al Shara's participation at the UN General Assembly this week continues his rise on the global stage following normalisation with the US and the forging of ties with countries in the region, Europe, and even with his old foes, mainly Russia and China. His Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) group, an offshoot of Al Qaeda before it severed ties, ousted former president Bashar Al Assad in December. HTS was dissolved after the Syrian regime collapsed.

A Druze statement on Sunday said that spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri has sent an invitation to Paulo Pinheiro, head of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic to “come to Sweida and convey the truth to the world before the evidence is lost”.

The statement was issued by the Legal Council, a group comprised mostly of lawyers and judges who have been running the de facto autonomous civil administration in Sweida for the past several weeks. The UN set up the commission in August 2011, five months after the outbreak of the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime.

Metropolitan Antonious Saad, the highest Christian Greek Orthodox authority in Sweida, joined Mr Al Hijri in calling for the commission to visit Sweida, the Druze statement said. Sweida has a tiny Christian community whose members were largely unharmed.

Last week, Washington brokered a deal to try to resolve the Druze question, after the killing of at least 1,000 people, mostly civilian members of the sect, in a government offensive in July.

The government said it had sent troops to Sweida in July to contain hostilities between the Druze and Sunnis of Bedouin origin in Sweida city, the provincial capital. The US-brokered deal was also signed by Jordan, which borders Sweida.

Under the agreement, the Syrian government promised to bring the perpetrators of the killings to justice and agree with the Druze on steps to integrate Sweida into the new Syrian state, but no deadlines were set.

Several hundred thousand Druze, comprising most of the community in Syria, live in Sweida. About 120,000 of them were displaced, mostly to Sweida city, after government troops and allied militias captured their towns and villages to the west and north. The province had about 50,000 Sunnis, the majority of whom were forced to leave, mostly to the neighbouring province of Deraa, to avoid retribution.

The US-brokered agreement obliged the Syrian government to allow Mr Pinheiro and his team “to conduct an investigation into the regrettable occurrences Sweida governorate has witnessed recently”. It also commits the government to hold “all perpetrators of violations accountable” and to take legal measures against “anyone proved to be involved in committing violations or have been a party to committing abuses against the civilians”.

The bloodshed compounded distrust between the central authorities and many of the country's ethnic and religious groups. Mr Al Assad sought to co-opt them to form an “alliance of minorities” underpinning his rule, along with the Alawite elite that dominated the country. The Druze, however, staged a peaceful uprising against the regime in the last two years of his rule, which was supported by Mr Al Hijri.

Mr Al Hijri has criticised the new authorities as extremist and called for a civil political course for the country, as opposed to one driven by religious dictates. He said last month that Syria's Druze have a right to self determination, including choosing separation – an anathema to all of Syria's Arab neighbours as well as Turkey, the new Syrian government's main backer.

The official Syrian news agency said Mr Al Shara will participate over the next several days in the UN General Assembly proceedings. He is widely expected to deliver Syria's address at the gathering.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shibani met US senators in Washington this week to discuss lifting major sanctions on Syria. He also met the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan group of politicians.

In central and eastern Syria, many of the country's Kurds allied in the last decade with the US, which formed the SDF in 2015. In the last decade, the group carved out a de facto autonomous region opposed by Turkey. But unlike the autonomous Kurdistan Region in Iraq, the SDF-controlled areas in Syria contain many Arabs. A March 10 deal between Mr Al Shara and the SDF to bring these areas under central control has failed to materialise, and in the last two months regular hostilities between the two sides have broken out.

On Sunday, the authorities denied allegations of killing seven civilians in an attack on Deir Hafir, an area in the countryside of Aleppo controlled by the SDF.

A Syrian Defence Ministry statement said it was the SDF forces who attacked the Deir Hafer area with rocket launchers “without the reasons being known”. The SDF said the seven were killed as a result of a government drone and artillery attack in the area, one of several front lines between the group and loyalist troops across central and eastern Syria.

The SDF accused the ministry of attempting to “hide the responsibility” of pro-government militias for the attack. In the last two months, Turkish warplanes have attacked SDF positions in Aleppo several times.

Mr Al Shara had persuaded Turkey not to attack the SDF but hinted that if integration is not achieved by December, Turkey would take military action against the SDF, according to Omer Ozkizilcik, a Turkish researcher who met Mr Al Shara in Damascus last week.

“In his words, Syrian society was not ready to debate decentralisation or federal systems,” Mr Ozkizilcik wrote in a column in Turkey Today. Mr Al Shara regards SDF demands for federalism as “simply separatism” but disguised, he said.