Sharaa vows to protect Druze rights after troops quit city

DAMASCUS

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has pledged to protects Druze citizens’ right, accusing Israel of seeking chaos in the country, with a ceasefire restoring calm Sweida after days of deadly clashes.

Addressing the Druze in televised speech, Sharaa said the community was "a fundamental part of the fabric of this nation... protecting your rights and freedom is one of our priorities.”

“We reject any attempt to drag you into the hands of an external party.”

“We are not among those who fear the war. We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” he said in his first address after Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian government targets in Damascus.

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has presented itself as a defender of the Syrian minority, although some analysts say that is a pretext for pursuing its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces as far from their shared frontier as possible.

Sharaa also said that the effective intervention of American, Arab and Turkish mediation, saved the region from an unknown fate, Sharaa said.

The Syrian leader also vowed that those behind violence against the Druze minority would be held accountable.

His remarks came after the Syrian government announced a new ceasefire in Sweida and a halt to military operations there after days of violence that killed more than 350 people, according to a war monitor.

The army had begun withdrawing from the Druze-majority city.