Druze clerics call to arm youth as threat of Islamic State mounts

(Reporting by Sarah Abdul Hai; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)

(Zaman Alwasl)- Local sources from Sweida province said the Islamic State (IS) started to deploy its fighters in the Eastern desert of the city, near to Rishida village.

 According to sources, nothing separates those groups from the city apart from Asfar region, the sole passage to smuggle arms to rebels in the Eastern Ghouta.

Sources warn that ISIS might attack Sweida city, predominately by Druze sect, so they called people in the city to gather themselves to stand against it especially after it managed to control the border triangle among Syria, Iraq and Jordan.

Sources confirm to Zaman Alwasl that Sweida’s Sheiks have confirmed the news and they correlated ISIS’s advancement toward the city with the trend to buy lands in the desert near the city by some agents related to ISIS.

All that development encouraged Sheiks in Sweida, to call for arming as many as possible of the city’s men to defend the city and protect its borders.

The source confirms that all men are not paid for the duty they do and arming is self-funded and the regime does not interfere in funding, and they aim to protect their city from ISIS’s attacks.

In a relevant content, some activists correlates between ISIS’s advancement toward Sweida, and Bedouins’ migration from the desert adjacent to the Eastern borders of Sweida, as they do not want to pay the price for the conflict between ISIS and Druze. Others considered Bedouins’ migration as a proof and a message to Sweida people that they were not responsible for the abduction cases happened to some people from the city.

On the other hand, many activists deny any presence of ISIS in the Eastern desert near Sweida, and they wonder in case this news is correct, who would be responsible for protecting and defending innocent people and civilians.