Gunmen attack coach on Damascus–Sweida road, killing two passengers

Gunmen have attacked a passenger coach in Syria’s Sweida province, killing two people. Photo / Getty Images

Gunmen have killed at least two people when they opened fire on a coach along the road between Damascus and Druze-majority Sweida in southern Syria, months after deadly sectarian clashes in the area.

State news agency SANA reported that “a passenger coach ... on the Damascus-Sweida road was fired upon by unidentified gunmen, killing two people and wounding others”.

Local outlet Sweida 24 identified the victims as a woman and a young man.

The outlet said that the coach was on its way back from Damascus, “within the area where General Security checkpoints are deployed”.

Sweida province witnessed a week of bloodshed that began on July 13 with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin but rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces, armed groups from other parts of Syria and Israeli intervention.

Syrian authorities said their forces acted to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze, including summary executions.

Syrian security forces have been deployed in and around Sweida province since a ceasefire ended the clashes, while Druze factions remained in control of the city of the same name.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, all the coach passengers were Druze.

An interior ministry official told AFP that a security forces checkpoint was attacked by an unspecified group.

The July Sweida clashes killed more than 2000 people, including 789 Druze civilians “summarily executed by defence and interior ministry personnel”, according to the Observatory.

The monitor also reported the August killing of a woman after an “armed group” opened fire on two civilian cars at a checkpoint between Damascus and Sweida.

In September, the Syrian government announced a plan backed by Jordan and the United States to restore calm and to hold “those who attacked civilians” accountable, but the situation remains unstable.

In an interview with Sky News Arabia, prominent Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al-Hijri, who is strongly opposed to the authorities in Damascus, reiterated his call for “full independence” of the Sweida province.

– Agence France-Presse