The Syrian Internal Security Directorate has announced that one of their officers has been arrested for involvement in an attack on Saturday in which four Druze civilians were killed and one other was wounded.
The shooting happened in the village of al-Matana, in Suwayda Governorate, when the civilians were out harvesting olives and got attacked by a group of gunmen reportedly including the now-arrested officer.
The village is under the government’s control, which adds to the embarrassment surrounding the incident, just the latest in several month of violence against Syria’s Druze religious minority, who are actually the majority in Suwayda.
It comes just a day after the Internet Security Directorate’s forces got in a clash around the town of Majdal, leaving another Druze killed and three wounded, and accusations that government forces shelled residential areas during the fighting.
The Syrian government struggled last year with promises of unity after seizing power at the end of 2024 but seeing security forces repeatedly complicit in massacres of religious minorities. While the government has tried to spin the violence as the fault of “outlaws” resisting their rule, today’s arrest reflects an attempt to try to further distance themselves from the massacres, and at least to show when they do happen, participants will be held accountable.
The violence against the Druze initially started in July, and while the initial clash was between Druze and Bedouin gunmen, government forces fairly quickly inserted themselves on one side of the conflict, leaving at the time well over 1,400 killed. Violence has slowed since then, but never really stopped, with incidents like this weekend’s shooting all too common in Suwayda.
