Days of escalation in Sweida: “Senseless War” that exposes true intentions–What do we know?

Sweida, a city inhabited by members of the Druze religious community, came under intense and violent attacks as part of the Transitional Government’s efforts to expand its control over the area. Since the early years of the Syrian crisis, the city’s residents had managed to expel the former Syrian regime and establish their own local military and security forces, as well as civil and service institutions.

The assault lasted for three consecutive days so what exactly happened?

Creating a crisis

Media outlets affiliated with the Transitional Government, as well as some Arab and international media, began pushing a narrative late Sunday into Monday claiming that clashes had erupted between Bedouin tribes and Sweida’s local forces due to mutual kidnappings. Following this, the Transitional Government sent military and security reinforcements to the city under the pretext of "restoring stability and ending the clashes."

In reality, however, the crisis was created by the government through provocations. A Druze businessman was kidnapped on the Damascus–Sweida road, and when the local defense forces intervened, government-linked armed groups from rural Sweida, Daraa, and other government-held areas across Syria escalated the situation and launched an attack.

These groups openly stated their real objective: to seize control of Sweida. The Transitional Government then officially joined the offensive against the local forces beginning Monday.

Sectarian incitement, violations, and crimes

Residents reported grave violations, including executions, looting, and the burning of homes after the Transitional Government’s forces and their allied groups entered the city.

Videos circulated on social media documented mass killings of Druze civilians, accompanied by extremist sectarian rhetoric targeting the people of Sweida.

These violations followed an intensive hate campaign that spread online in the days prior, calling for the killing and excommunication of Druze people. This campaign exposed the Transitional Government’s intentions and undermined its claims of protecting Syria’s diverse communities and religions.

Sequence of events

ANHA correspondent, along with field sources from local military forces and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that on Monday, Transitional Government forces and affiliated armed groups captured several Druze-populated villages on the outskirts of Sweida.

After infiltrating neighborhoods inside the city on Tuesday, the government attempted to impose surrender by promoting the idea of an "agreement" allegedly signed with local figures, calling for a ceasefire followed by government entry into the city.

However, the spiritual leader of the Druze community, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, on the same day (Tuesday), called on people to "resist this barbaric campaign by all available means." Clashes thus continued into the night and early morning, becoming intermittent.

Fighting intensified again on Wednesday morning, just hours after the government’s so-called “ceasefire announcement.” The Transitional Government declared its intent to complete its military operation, but Israeli intervention played a decisive role in halting the attacks.

Israel launched airstrikes on Transitional Government forces and movements in Sweida, Daraa, and their countryside. The strikes escalated with attacks on the Presidential Palace, the Ministry of Defense, and the General Staff Headquarters in Damascus, as well as areas in rural Damascus on Wednesday. Government forces, however, continued their assaults on Sweida.

Israeli airstrikes targeted more than 27 sites in Sweida and its countryside, Daraa and its countryside, and Damascus and surrounding areas—many of which were struck multiple times. According to IDF Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee, the strikes hit “military sites and vehicles, weapons platforms, command centers for the Sweida operation, supply routes, and convoys heading to Sweida.”

Following the Israeli strikes, the Transitional Government was forced to yield. To save face, it announced a ceasefire and claimed to have reached an agreement with the Druze religious leadership. However, the spiritual authority of the Druze, the Spiritual Council of Unitarian Muslims, denied any such agreement, rejected negotiations, and confirmed that it would continue defending the region until all hostile forces withdrew.

By late Wednesday night, government forces began withdrawing from the city and its countryside. By Thursday morning, local defense forces had fully regained control.

All of Sweida and its countryside are now under the control of local military forces, who successfully forced the Transitional Government’s forces out of the areas they had seized.

Despite government efforts to present this outcome as a mutual agreement rather than a defeat, the president of the Transitional Government Ahmad al-Sharaa admitted in a televised speech early Thursday morning that "local factions and Druze elders have been tasked with managing their areas."

Sweida now faces a severely damaged humanitarian and local situation that urgently requires relief intervention to restore daily life and document the violations committed, especially massacres, looting, and property destruction.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the death toll from sectarian violence in Sweida over the past few days has risen to 374.

A senseless war and foreign capitulation

Syrian activists and observers view this “senseless war” by the Transitional Government against Sweida as the result of unrealistic assumptions. The government believed that regional and international conditions were favorable for such an offensive, especially following the Transitional President’s visit to Azerbaijan and talk of normalization between Damascus and Tel Aviv, possibly including territorial concessions to Israel.

The government was further encouraged by a superficial understanding of U.S. statements, including remarks by the American envoy to Syria, which seemed to show support for Damascus’s internal policies.

Analysts concluded that the Transitional Government is simply continuing the former regime’s approach, relying on foreign support to suppress the Syrian people and their diverse communities. This also explains its recent retreat from the March 10 agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Yet, in the face of Israeli escalation, the government responded to the new reality and withdrew from Sweida.

Political commentators and Syrian activists pointed out on social media that although the government claims to preserve national unity and prevent fragmentation, echoing Baathist rhetoric, its forced retreat effectively granted expanded autonomous powers to Sweida’s local leadership. Thus, the government has shown little interest in domestic demands and responds primarily to external pressure.

A-H 

ANHA