Jumblat Warns Druze against Falling Anew into Syrian Regime 'Trap'

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Monday warned the minority Druze community of Syria against being dragged into the Syrian regime's “war of killing and destruction.”

“The regime's policies that are based on turning regions and sects against each other are aimed at inflaming the fire of strife and prolonging the conflict,” Jumblat cautioned in his weekly editorial in PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa newspaper.

Members of the pro-regime National Defense Force militia are currently engaged in clashes with rebel and Islamist fighters near the Syrian towns of Dhibin and Bakka in the mainly Druze Sweida province. Fighting is also ongoing in the Umm al-Alaq village near Sweida's Najran.

Meanwhile, fierce clashes are still underway with the aim of seizing control of the triangle linking the Syrian areas of northwestern Daraa, Quneitra's countryside and the western countryside of Damascus. Relations between Daraa and Sweida are characterized by extreme caution and lack of confidence due to the current crisis.

In his editorial, Jumblat warned that the regime is dragging “the revolution and all its components to the arena that it masters playing on – the arena of violence, killing, destruction and explosive barrels.”

“The regime will once again use the Druze Arabs, the same as it used them a few months ago in Arneh, with the aim of implicating them in absurd fighting with their Syrian brothers,” the Druze leader cautioned.

“I join my voice to the voices of the journalists, artists and activists in the Daraa province, who have issued a statement highlighting the relation of good-neighborliness that links Sweida to Daraa and the need to consolidate this historic relation … in the face of the regime's policies,” he added.

He also called for “further awareness, national responsibility and political and ethical courage” to “avoid falling anew into the regime's trap.”

Y.R.