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Sectarian clashes between Sunni gunmen and the Druze sect erupted on Tuesday after an audio recording attributed to a Druze shaykh circulated on social media. The recording in question featured a man cursing the Prophet Muhammad. The Syrian Interior Ministry later cleared the shaykh of involvement in the audio recording but not before unidentified gunmen attacked the predominantly Druze town of Jaramana, south of Damascus sparking a wave violence that killed several dozens of Syrians including the mayor of the predominantly Druze town of Sahnaya. The latest eruption violence follows last month’s sectarian clashes along the coast that killed hundreds of Syria’s Alawite minority. Critics claim that initial attacks were carried out by Sunni extremists affiliated with the interim Syrian government while analysts like Hassan Hassan and the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister have dismissed the claim as unfounded. Rabbee Mounzer, a Druze leader in Jarmana placed blame with the Syrian government in a statement to the New York Times saying, “Either the government is turning a blind eye, or it doesn’t have the capacity to control anyone, either way the government is responsible. Israel carried out a drone strike in Syria against militants it claimed were preparing to target the Druze on Wednesday. Israel has partly justified its presence in side Syria on the grounds that it is protecting the Druze. Early Friday, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that it had carried out a second “warning” strike near the presidential palace in Damascus. Tobias Schneider, a fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute and an expert on the Druze, criticized Israel’s actions as “profoundly irresponsible” and a “recipe for disaster” while noting that sectarianism was baked into the Assad regime and sectarian violence was always a likely result of its collapse. Israel is home to more than 125,000 Druze, many of whom have fought in the Israeli Defense Force.
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