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SYRIA-CONFLICT-MILITARY-DRUZE
Assad calls on Syria’s Druze minority to do military service
DAMASCUS, Nov 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has
called on the country’s Druze community to do military service, days after
members of the minority were released following a mass abduction in July by
the Islamic State group.
Sweida province is the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, who made up
around three percent of the country’s pre-war population — or around 700,000
people.
Since the conflict erupted in 2011, thousands of Druze, especially those in
Sweida, have refused to be conscripted, instead joining local militias
promising to protect the region.
Damascus has so far turned a blind eye as long as the Druze militias do not
ally with rebel groups.
Speaking to a group of former hostages and their families on Tuesday, Assad
thanked the army, saying that without them “the abducted people would not
have been freed”.
“We owe a great debt to (the army) and as for you… your responsibility is
even greater,” he said in a video published on the presidency’s official
Telegram account.
The main way the Druze community could support the army was to do military
service, Assad added.
The Druze, followers of a secretive offshoot of Islam, are considered
heretics by the Sunni extremists of IS.
IS militants abducted about 30 people — mostly women and children — from
Sweida in late July during the deadliest attack on the Druze during the
Syrian civil war.
Some of the hostages died while others were freed last month in a prisoner
swap. The remaining 19, mostly women and children, were released last week.
Before the war began, Syrian men aged 18 and older had to serve up to two
years in the army, after which they became reserves available for call-up in
times of crisis.
In the past seven years, fatalities, injuries and defections are estimated
to have halved the once 300,000-strong army.
To compensate, the force has relied on reservists and militias as well as
indefinitely extending military service for young conscripts.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0954 hrs