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25-08-2025
DAMASCUS/ SWEIDA: Syria’s first parliamentary election under its new Islamist administration, scheduled for September, will not include the southern province of Sweida and two other provinces because of security concerns, the electoral commission said on Saturday.
Hundreds of people were reported killed in July in clashes in Sweida province pitting Druze fighters against Sunni Bedouin tribes and government forces.
Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said were mass killings of Druze by government forces.
The Druze are a minority offshoot of Islam with followers in Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Sweida province is predominantly Druze but is also home to Sunni tribes and the communities have had longstanding tensions over land and other resources.
The Higher Committee for People’s Assembly Elections said the ballot would also be delayed in the northern provinces of Hasaka and Raqqa until a “safe environment” is in place, according to state news agency SANA. Seats allocated to the three provinces will remain vacant until elections can be held there, commission spokesperson Nawar Najmeh told SANA.
“The elections are a sovereign matter that can only be conducted in areas fully under government control,” he added.
The head of the electoral commission said last month that voting for the 210-member People’s Assembly was due to take place between September 15 and 20.
The fighters in military-style uniforms pointed their rifles at the three unarmed men and ordered them out onto a sunny balcony, before barking at them to pause. “One minute. You want to film them?” one of the attackers asked his comrade.
The unfolding horror, which was already being filmed by one gunman on his cellphone, was delayed for a few moments to allow a second fighter to start capturing the events.
“Let’s go! Throw yourself over,” the gunmen yelled at their victims, members of Syria’s minority Druze faith.
Two of the attackers shot the men one by one as they clambered over the black railing before their bodies tumbled to the street below, according to the footage circulating on social media which was reviewed by media.
The victims were Moaz Arnous, his brother Baraa Arnous and their cousin, Osama Arnous, according to a family friend and another cousin who both told media the video showed the three being killed at their home in the southern city of Sweida on July 16. The deaths were among 12 execution-style killings of unarmed Druze civilians carried out at three sites in and around Sweida this month by gunmen wearing military fatigues, according to the footage of the attacks, which was filmed by the killers themselves or people accompanying them and verified by media.
Another video shows Mounir al-Rajma, a 60-year-old guard at a communal water well, being gunned down by two young fighters after telling them he is Druze, his son Wiam told media. Other footage shows a group of fighters forcing eight civilians to kneel in the dust of a roundabout before shooting those dead, according to a friend and a relative of some of those victims.
The videos provide some of the most detailed depictions yet of the bloodshed that erupted in Sweida province in mid-July, initially between local Druze militia and Bedouin tribal fighters and subsequently government forces sent to restore order. The violence killed hundreds of mostly Druze people, according to media reporting and two monitoring groups. Media was able to use visible landmarks in each video to geo-locate the incidents. The events depicted and their dates were verified through interviews with seven relatives and friends of the victims. All said they believed Syrian government forces killed their loved ones. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
