(Zaman Al Wasl)- State-run TV said a reconciliation dead to be reached between the Druze dominated villages of Beit Saber and Beit Tima, and the surrounding villages in Mount Hermon after deep discords.
Activists have accused the regime of pushing the villages of Jabal al-Sheikh to reach the point of strife and disintegration where these villages were previously models for religious and social co-existence between the many religions that have lived peacefully on the mountain for the years. Using corrupt Baathists and opportunistic agents the regime managed to destroy this balance.
They allowed Wiam Wahhab to establish a military cell in the Druze villages to fight with the regime based on the threat of the expansion of Islamic terrorist takfiri.
The Sa’sa’ security branch is the another actor that incited hostility among the villages of Jabal al-Sheikh. The branch is responsible for fighting between the villages as it provided pro-regime supporters with arms and information.
The al-Jabal villages were the first areas to join the peaceful movement against the regime in the start of the revolution. The villages later armed, like elsewhere in Syria, after the regime began killing their residents and sons. The villages were distinguished by the ferocity of their fighters and the quality of their weapons. As border villages across the world, the villages of Jabala al-Sheikh have smuggling routes across the border, and smuggling is a major part of their economy. They were able to smuggle in good quality weapons.
At the end of 2014, the National Defense militia was attacking the villages of Kafr Hor, Beit Saber, and Beit Tima with the support of regime air force bombardment. Most of the members of the National Defense participating in the attack were from the Druze villages. Originally, the regime and some of the Druze notables in the area argued that the Druze brigades would only serve a protective role.
The Druze fighting in the National Defense were not supposed to become involved in fighting on any fronts or against the opposition but to protect property. The special role was decided and supported by the highest Druze Sheikhs in Syria as the community chose not to participate in the fighting which it sees as a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites.
The attack on the Jabal al-Sheikh villages went against the community decision. After it failed and the National Defense attacking forces were besieged in the farms of Kafr Hor with dozens of wounded and killed, sectarian mobilization began increasing the strife in the area. By not supporting these forces, the regime encouraged some of the Druze elders to intervene and point out the regime’s destructive role after it pushed Druze youths more than once into confrontations with the opposition in the neighboring villages and towns as happened in Daraya and Khan al-Sheh. By forcing their participation, the regime achieved sectarian anger and mobilization.
In al-Qunaitra, the regime forced the Druze of Hadr village to fight against the villages in al-Joulan which they belong to. Confrontations took place in Hadr between the pro-regime and opposition supporters. The fighting was then transferred to neighboring villages of Jabtha al-Khashab and Beit Jinn. Beit Jinn in particular, was insubordinate to the all the regime and its sectarian militia’s attempts to control it.
The Druze brigades and the National Defense militia are one of the largest forces participating in the fighting. The Druze in the village of Sahnaya in Damasuc Suburb assisted the regime in fighting their neighbors and they committed massacres in Daraya. The forces’ most violent attack was storming the Jadidet al-Fadel neighborhood and killing residents with knives.
In the villages of Arnah, Beqaasem, and Jandal Castle which are strongholds for Druze shabiha (thug) groups, one of the citizens of the al-Kharbeh recounted that the shabiha from Arnah are responsible for this fighting since they are the most extremely supportive of the regime and Waim Wahhab. The resident continued that the mountain’s people want peace with their neighbors whom they protected for decades and never initiated any attacks against, and insisted that the threat of Islamic terrorism is just a lie promoted by the regime and its followers.
After the regime's series of death, siege and terror, the regime’s other face appears in its insistence on reconciling between the villages of Jabal al-Sheikh. The move comes to reaffirm the regime's role as the protector of minorities and the guarantor of the unity of the Syria's social fabric.
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