Syria’s Damascus Countryside: Druze leader condemns ‘Extermination’
Shafaq News/ On Thursday, Druze spiritual leader Sheikh al-Aql Hikmat al-Hijri issued a stark warning about what he described as “systematic mass killings” targeting civilians in Syria’s coastal and Druze-majority regions.
“We did not expect the Takfiri Daesh-style massacres; they came solely for killing and terror,” al-Hijri stated. “What is happening requires immediate intervention by international forces to maintain peace and to stop these crimes at once.”
He accused extremist factions and their backers of targeting minorities, including moderate Sunnis, denouncing the state’s “failure” to protect its citizens. “We no longer trust an entity that claims to be a government — for a true government does not kill its own people through its affiliated Takfiri gangs.”
Calling for a decentralized and inclusive civil state, al-Hijri urged Syrians to adopt a constitution that ensures equality and rejects sectarian exclusion, stressing, “Our people and our martyrs are not gangs. This is an unjustifiable campaign of extermination.”
Following days of violence, a preliminary ceasefire was reportedly reached Wednesday in the towns of Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya in Damascus Countryside. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that at least 22 people had been killed in Sahnaya, including six Druze civilians and 16 fighters aligned with government forces.
