The Lebanese Druze leader Walid Joumblatt. (Credit: Archive photo PSP/X)
Former Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid Joumblatt has traveled to Syria as deadly clashes continue between Druze fighters and the country's new security forces south of Damascus. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the fighting has killed more than 100 people.
Joumblatt is expected to meet with Syria’s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa. The veteran Lebanese political figure has called for the creation of a dialogue committee that includes all parties, in hopes of fostering a political solution to the escalating conflict.
Earlier Friday, Taymour Joumblatt — Walid’s son, Druze MP and head of the Progressive Socialist Party — condemned what he called a “bloodbath” in Syria in a post on his X account. He also extended condolences to the families of the victims, the “martyrs of Jaramana and Jabal al-Arab,” two areas located respectively in the western suburbs of Damascus and about 100 kilometers southwest of the capital.
On April 29, Druze leaders and Syrian authorities reached an agreement to bring to justice those responsible for a deadly assault on Jaramana.
The latest violence comes nearly five months after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the rise to power of Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of the jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Sharaa led the offensive that toppled Assad at the head of a coalition of rebel factions.
Although the new regime had promised to protect minorities, clashes have since erupted, particularly with the Druze and the Alawites — the sect to which the Assad family belongs and which ruled Syria for more than 50 years. Hundreds have been killed in the massacres.
The fighting involving the Druze also drew a strong reaction from Israel, which said it had carried out strikes on new regime targets in Syria in what it described as a move to "defend" the Druze minority.
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