The radical insurgent drive to conquer areas in southern Syria under the control of Damascus threatens to embroil the country's Druze community, Israel and UN peacekeepers, including Irish officers, deployed along the buffer zone separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan plateau.
Last week, skirmishes killed a Druze girl and wounded 10 residents of the town of al-Khader. Following the deaths, Israel, the US and Jordan warned al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, which heads a coalition of radical factions, not to attack the progovernment town, a stone’s throw from the Golan.
The Druze faith emerged from Shiism in the 11th century and incorporated concepts from Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, causing Sunni radicals to consider the community heretical. To survive over the centuries Druze have practised “taqiya”, or deception, pretending to belong to the main faith where they dwell. However, where they live as Druze they can be vulnerable.
Nusra leader Abu Mohamed al-Joulani has threatened that if his fighters conquer Druze towns and villages, Nusra will demand Druze convert to ultraorthodox Salafi Islam or suffer the same fate as the 20 Druze murdered recently in a Druze village in northern Syria.
Syrian Druze, who number 700,000, along with Christian, Alawite, and Kurdish minorities, supported the government since unrest erupted in 2011 and have suffered at the hands of Nusra, Islamic State (IS), and their jihadi allies.
To protect their towns and villages Druze have formed popular committees or joined the progovernment National Defence Forces. Until recently the Jabal Druze area in Sweida province remained relatively quiet and stable, with the Druze keeping out of the violence gripping Syria.
Strategic
However, this strategic area straddles the Jordan border, and Druze villages near the Golan have been caught up in Nusra’s campaign to take Quneitra, the main city on the Syrian side of the border, and establish full control along the UN buffer zone.
Israel, while responding to random fire into the Israeli-held Golan with air strikes on and shelling of government forces, has reached an accommodation with Nusra allowing 1,600 wounded fighters and civilians to cross into Israel for treatment and return to Syria. UN observers have also reported seeing Israeli troops handing over boxes of arms and ammunition to jihadis, some of whose families apparently live in a camp just inside Israeli-held territory.
Consequently, Israel has some leverage on Nusra and its allies. However, these groups seek to expand operations not only along the Golan ceasefire line but also throughout the south, where the Syrian army has a tenuous hold on key towns and military sites. Nusra and its allies are not only motivated by the determination to expand the territory they hold but also to defeat IS. Therefore, Nusra is under considerable pressure to seize strategic Druze areas.
Leverage
The Druze communities in Israel, where Druze serve in the armed forces, and the occupied Golan also have some leverage with the Israeli government. The Israeli army has established a field hospital near the buffer zone and may be called upon to create a corridor to enable Druze fleeing Nusra to enter the Golan. Druze leaders have demanded intervention using the Israeli air force.
Israel’s Druze spiritual leader Shaikh Muwafak Tarif said there would be a massacre of Syrian Druze if the army does not intervene. He told Israeli Army Radio, “Israel is gambling on the wrong side in the confrontation with Syria,” and said Israel had, in the past, “helped both Hizbullah and Hamas to grow, and now it it’s making the same mistake with rebel organisations like Nusra”.
