MENA Minorities

Jordan based journalist Madeline Edwards has a nice article at Middle East Eye about the mere chaotic situation in Suwaida, I am briefly cited as well. ' Security chaos': Kidnappings and clashes threaten relative peace in Syria's Sweida   by  Madeline Edwards, Middle East Eye "... When protests broke out across Syria in 2011, they appeared too in Sweida.  Like elsewhere, citizen journalists and activists took to social media to tell the story of the war as it soon began to unfold. Opposition militias also sprang up.  And yet the Syrian government has largely spared Sweida the kind of mass arrests and bombing campaigns it waged elsewhere, seeing the province’s Druze as a politically sensitive minority group with whom it didn’t want to sour relations.  “Even though there was violence in Sweida too, the crackdown of the regime was not on the same scale of brutality as in other parts of the country,” says Tobias Lang, an analyst who has focused on Druze ...

Bellow you find some citations of myself from this summer, mostly in regard to the crucial attack on the Druze population of Suwaida' by ISIS which took place on July 25. Remember that about 30 woman and children are still hold captive by ISIS and no one seems to care. Syria's Druze minority: walking a war-time tightrope , Agence France Press (...) Syria's Druze have been split by the uprising that erupted in 2011 against President Bashar al-Assad, who had long portrayed himself as a protector of the country's minorities. Druze should not be seen "as being neutral in this war -- it's more multifaceted and the Druze are not a monolithic bloc," said Tobias Lang, an analyst focused on Druze populations in the Middle East. One of the first soldiers to defect from Syria's army in protest at its handling of demonstrations was Druze officer Khaldun Zeineddine, who later died in clashes against regime forces. Others remained firmly loyal, like Gene...

Former Israeli defense and foreign minister Moshe Arens states in his recent column at Haaretz that in Majdal Shams on the occupied Golan:  The Syrian flags are gone and Israeli flags are beginning to appear. Some 30 percent of the Druze residents of Majdal Shams have taken out Israeli citizenship, and the rest of the Druze villages seem to be following suit. I really wonder where Arens gets those numbers from. The most recent numbers I have seen were cited by i24News (thx to  Elizabeth Tsurkov  for the reminder) in February last year. Then the total number of naturalized citizens since 2011 from all four Druze villages on the occupied Golan was 151. Majdal Shams has currently around 8,800 inhabitants according to Wikipedia . Is it realistic that some additional 2,000 (conservatively estimated) have been naturalized over the last year? No. However, Arens might not be so wrong with his overall message, since, in the context of the war in...

Syria Druze faction detains regime security members by AlbinSzakola and Ullin Hope, Now (...)The Men of Dignity—which considers itself independent of both the Bashar al-Assad government and the opposition— announced Tuesday morning that Sheikh Anas Abu Hala had been detained the day before “at the Al-Masmiyeh checkpoint by the Military Intelligence [Directorate].”   “As a result security elements have been detained by the Men of Dignity [and will remain in our custody] until he is released,” the paramilitary group added. According to the statement, a prisoner swap will take place later Tuesday between the regime and the Men of Dignity.   The administration of the Men of Dignity’s Facebook page issued a clear warning to the regime not to detain any figures linked to the faction, which the regime’s Suweida security chief said he wanted to destroy in a leaked video late last year. (...)

Very insightful piece about Samir Quntar and the Golan Druze by Nour Samaha, I am briefly cited as well. Blurred Future by Nour Samaha, Newsweek Middle East (...) Who was Kantar and What Was He Doing in Syria? At the age of 16, Kantar, a Lebanese Druze, was sentenced by an Israeli court to five life terms plus 47 years for his role in a 1979 military operation in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya. He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange deal between Hezbollah and Israel in 2008.  He joined Hezbollah’s ranks soon after. Following the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011, Kantar was tasked with heading up the Popular Syrian Resistance (PSR), an obscure group that was created in 2013. Backed by the Syrian government, and supervised and equipped by Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the PSR’s aim was to recruit local Syrians from the southern Quneitra province, near the Golan Heights. The recruits were tasked with carrying out operations ag...

I was quoted by Laure Stephan in Le Monde regarding the assassination of Samir Quntar : La mort en Syrie d’un symbole du Hezbollah Par Laure Stephan, Le Monde (...) Avec l’entrée du Hezbollah en Syrie – officiellement, à partir de 2013 – aux côtés du régime, Samir Kantar fait de nouveau parler de lui. Selon une source druze syrienne proche de l’opposition, il sillonne les villages druzes de la région de Kuneitra et du mont Hermon pour y recruter des combattants pro-Assad et jouit d’un « pouvoir de décision ». Les miliciens participent à des attaques contre les rebelles et les djihadistes syriens, en guerre contre le régime. Le chercheur Tobias Lang affirme que Samir Kantar recrute également des candidats pour des « activités contre Israël ». La zone constitue, pour le Hezbollah, un nouveau front potentiel avec l’Etat hébreu, moins direct que le Liban. (...)

“The Assyrians of Syria: History and Prospects”   by Mardean Isaac, Syria Comment

What are the implications of Russia's intervention for Hizballah? Here you will find some interesting answers: Hezbollah’s New Ally In Syria  by Nour Samaha, Newsweek Middle East Russia’s involvement has also seen an increase of Hezbollah fighters on the ground. Sources close to the party confirm that approximately 2,000 fighters have been added to the battlefield, specifically in the areas around Aleppo and Idlib, in the immediate aftermath of Russian airstrikes, adding more foot soldiers to the thousands already present there.   “For example, before Russia’s [involvement] there were around 200 fighters in Aleppo and Idlib, predominantly advisors,” said one source. “Now there are between 1,500 and 2,000.”(…)

F ormer Druze Knesset member Sa ʿ id Naffaʿ beg an his one year long prison term on Sunday ( see here for a video of the rally in front of the prison) . He was senteced for illigally visiting Syria in 2007 along with 282 Druze clerics and meeting the deputy head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC) - a terrorist group according (not only) to Israeli law. in Syria 2007 The details of the affair, which has led to the conviction of Naffaʿ and to none of the 282 c lerics , are well known but this is also an opportunity to shine some light on his career and the political tendencies inside the Israeli-Druze community he repre sen t s . Naffaʿ is the most profiled politician the non-Zionist Druze faction has produced so far.  Sa ʿ id Naffaʿ Saʿid Naffaʿ was born in the all Druze Upper Galileein village of Bait Jann in 1953. Mandatory conscription was introduced for all male Druze except the religious ʿuqqal in 1956 and...

Prominent proponents of the Eastern Orthodox church in Lebanon come out in strong opposition against the declaration of the military intervention of Russia as a 'holy war' by the Russian Orthodox church. Good, but remember the seat of the patriarch of Antioch is Damascus, not Beirut. Syria's 'holy war' by Sami Nader, Al Monitor

Likewise rumors have been circulating for a while but it was officially announced earlier this week: Sheikh Rafat al-Bal'us (Abu Yusuf) is the successor of his assassinated brother Wahid as leader of the autonomous minded Syrian Druze dignity movement. Sheikh Rafat, who was wounded at the bomb attack in September, is obviously still not in best shape. However, the movement is alive despite the elimination of most of its leadership. Even the formation of a new unit,  bayraq al-maqdad,  was announced. On the same occasion Fahad, the oldest son of Wahid al-Bal'us, also gave a speech in full combat dress, indicating that he might play a leading role in the future. Rafat al-Bal'us speech bayraq al-maqdad insignia   Druze figure takes up assassinated brother’s mantle, Now BEIRUT – Rafaat Balaous has taken over the leadership of Suweida’s Druze Sheikhs of Dignity movement, issuing a fiery statement blaming the Bashar al-Assad regime for the assassi...

French Syria expert Fabrice Balanche published a very informative paper about demographics in the province of Latakia including a couple of great maps via the Washington Institute: Latakia Is Assad's Achilles Heel by  Fabrice Balanche

Mazen Ezzi, editor of the Beirut-based Al Modon online newspaper and author of a series about the early days of the revolution in Suwaida , provides a full length analysis about the situation of the Druze community in Syria. The Arabic version has already been published in July, so the assassination of recently emerged Druze leader sheikh Wahid al-Bal'us (Abu Fahd) is not featured. Nevertheless, Ezzi provides some  interesting points especially regarding Bal'us and his "men/sheikhs of dignity" movement, making it more plausible why the regime might have perceived him as a threat. The Druze of Suwayda: The Embers of Dissent by Mazen Ezzi, Al-Jumhuriya English (...)Al-Balaous accused the Syrian regime of betraying the Druze and then he continued, talking about al-Assad, “If he cannot protect us, we do not want him. We will go to the presidential palace to topple him down.” A few days later, a statement by the three Sheikhs was issued, excommunicating al-Balao...

Syria's Druze reject calls for anti-government uprising by Nour Samaha, Al Jazeera English On September 5, Balous, a popular anti-government Druze leader, had just finished eating lunch in a village in Syria's southern Sweida governorate. A short time later, an explosion hit the convoy Balous was travelling in - killing him, his right-hand man, and several others.   As the victims were arriving at the government hospital, there was another blast at the hospital's entrance. More than 25 people were killed and several dozen more were wounded in both bomb explosions. According to SANA, a Syrian state news agency, someone has since confessed to being responsible for the explosions and to belonging to the Nusra Front, one of the rebel groups fighting to end the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.(...)   According to Tobias Long, a researcher and analyst on minorities in the Middle East, the Druze have limited options moving forward. "It's too early to tel...

Leon T. Goldsmith from the Sultan Qaboos Unuversity in Oman is the author of a recently published monograph on the Alawites of Syria (I've ordered already). A worth reading piece by him about the current crisis of the Alawites in the light of history can be found on the publishing house's homepage. Is Alawite Solidarity Finally Breaking? by Leon T. Goldsmith On 8 August 2015 large crowds of Alawites demonstrated in Latakia in western Syria , with many demanding the execution of Suleiman Hilal al-Asad, a relative of Bashar al-Asad who murdered—mafia style—the Alawi Colonel Hassan al-Sheikh during an apparent road rage incident . While the regime ordered the arrest of Suleiman, who at the time of writing remains defiant and at large, this incident reflects rising Alawite discontentment with the narrow Asad clique which has been at the centre of Syrian and Alawi power since 1970. Alawites have paid a heavy price in lives in the struggle to preserve Asad rule, a...

I'm cited in the leading French daily Le Monde about the situation in Suweida : Le dilemme de la minorité druze de Syrie Par Laure Stephan et Piotr Smolar Mais pour le journaliste et opposant Fadi Dahouk, réfugié à Beyrouth, cet alignement sur le régime pourrait changer, avec l’essor des Cheikhs de la dignité, une autre milice, formée en 2014 par un religieux druze, cheikh Ouadih Al-Bal’ous.  « Nous sommes contre tous ceux qui nous attaquent.  (…)  Si l’Etat nous attaque, il sera notre ennemi »,  affirme le cheikh, qui a pourtant combattu aux côtés du pouvoir. A Soueida, il a obtenu le retrait de points de contrôle militaires. Il a aussi réclamé le retour de prisonniers.  « Le fait qu’il ait eu gain de cause et qu’il puisse ouvertement critiquer la corruption ou les services de renseignements indique  qu’il a acquis une certaine notoriété, et que le régime ne veut pas se mettre à dos les forces druzes » , analyse le politolog...

Wladimir Glasman, one of France's leading Syria-experts passend away. A former diplomat born in Rabat, he was a devoted and outspoken researcher with a strong passion for the Syrian people. Over the last year he occasionally used to sent me links of videos via Twitter, which I later featured on this blog. To a wider audiance he was propably best known for his great Syria blog on Le Monde using the alias of Leverrier Ignace. May he rest in peace.  Wladimir Glasman 1942-2015 Edit:   Disparition de Wladimir Glasman, compagnon de route de la révolution syrienne par Christophe Ayad, Le Monde Disparition de Wladimir Glasman (1942 – 2015) , ifpo

I'm cited in a report about the Druze in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights featured on Qantara.de, the great online magazine run by Germany's international broadcaster. Squeezed between occupation and civil war   Ylenia Gostoli, Qantara.de (...)Apart from the protest mentioned above, however, most Golanese Druze have distanced themselves from the position of their co-religionists inside Israel. "Over the last decades, the relationships between the Druze in Israel and those in the Golan has been very cold and distant," said Tobias Lang, a political scientist who wrote a book about the Druze minority (...) "The majority of the Druze in Israel serve in the army and accepted a particularistic Israeli-Druze identity, whilst Golani Druze stayed loyal to the motherland." "We don't share most of their demands," said Salman Fakhr Edeen, a resident and researcher at a local human rights NGO. "I myself am against the war. To increase killi...

Last week I was cited by a couple of media about the current situation between Israel and the Syrian Druze (in English, French & German): Syrian Druze plight tests Israel’s policy of avoiding involvement in civil war Sean Savage, Jewish News Service “The Druze in Idlib and in the Golan/Hermon-region are in a very precarious situation and such a possibility [of massacres] exists, especially in Idlib. Here the Druze are totally at the mercy of Nusra, even though they have already twice declared their conversion to Islam,” Tobias Lang, an Austria-based political analyst and author of the book “Die Drusen in Libanon und Israel” (“The Druze in Lebanon and Israel”), told  JNS.org . (...)   “With the recent dynamic [of the] the massacre in Idlib, the growing Islamic State activity in eastern Sweida, the pushing of other rebels towards Sweida from the west, and the siege of the Druze town of Hader [in the Golan Heights], the Israeli Druze started to get involved on a...