Suwayda Governorate

Overview

Suwayda Governorate is a Druze-majority province in Syria. Its largest city, As-Suwayda, is the provincial center. The governorate is home to Druze communities and Bedouin communities whose relations, together with the role of local militias and the Syrian state, have shaped its recent history. In 2010, the province had about 375,000 residents: approximately 90 percent Druze, 7 percent Christian and 3 percent Sunni. Suwayda remained largely autonomous during the Syrian civil war, but suffered an Islamic State massacre in 2018 and extensive fighting in 2025.

Geography

Jabal al-Druze, also called Jabal al-Arab, lies within the governorate and has a Druze majority. Salkhad and Shahba are among its towns; Shahba is distinct from the enclave of the same name north of Aleppo. Salkhad District includes the villages of Khazma, Shaab and Malah. Suwayda borders Daraa Governorate, where the first demonstrations against Bashar al-Assad began on March 18, 2011. Its border with Jordan has also made the province important to efforts to stop cross-border drug and weapons smuggling.

Modern history

During Assad’s rule, an informal arrangement with Druze spiritual leaders kept Druze conscripts serving within Suwayda province. Local armed groups nevertheless formed to defend their communities and resist forced service elsewhere in the army. Wahid al-Balous founded Rijal al-Karama, or Men of Dignity, and opposed forced conscription. He was killed in car bombings in 2015; many residents blamed Assad’s forces. His death prompted unrest and left a lasting mark on local politics. Druze armed factions subsequently divided, and no single faction represented every resident. Al-Nusra Front and other jihadist organizations did not establish a significant military presence or civil administration in the Druze-majority governorate during the civil war.

In July 2018, Islamic State attacked Druze communities across Suwayda, killing more than 250 people and abducting at least 36. The mass killing deepened concerns about whether Damascus could protect the province and remained central to Druze security debates after Assad’s fall.

A protest wave began in August 2023 amid rising fuel prices, the falling Syrian pound and worsening living conditions. Demonstrations in Suwayda and neighboring Daraa grew from economic grievances into demands for Bashar al-Assad’s removal, prisoners’ release and action on United Nations resolutions concerning Syria. More than 10,000 people joined demonstrations across 200 locations in southern Syria after August 20. Protesters closed Suwayda city’s provincial parliamentary office on August 29 and welded shut the gates of its Ba’ath Party headquarters. Assad’s forces fired on demonstrators trying to close that headquarters on September 13, injuring three. On the eighth anniversary of al-Balous’s death, protesters tore down a poster of Bashar al-Assad and damaged a statue of Hafez al-Assad. They rejected secession and described the governorate as their homeland within Syria. After Hamas, a terrorist organization, attacked Israel in October 2023, daily protests in Suwayda remained focused on Assad’s rule and Syrian prisoners. Assad’s forces arrested journalist Mahmoud Abdullatif Ibrahim in February 2024 after he expressed support for the protests online.

Security

By 2023, Iran operated at least fifteen military posts in Suwayda. Iranian networks exploited poor economic conditions to recruit residents into drug smuggling, adding to insecurity along Jordan’s border. Jordan reinforced that border and carried out airstrikes against suspected smuggling targets in Suwayda in January 2024. Strikes on two villages on January 18 killed ten civilians, including two children and five women.

After the fall of Assad’s regime in December 2024, Druze leaders approached the new government of Ahmed al-Sharaa cautiously. Suwayda’s senior spiritual leaders—Hikmat al-Hijri, Yousef al-Jerboa and Hammoud al-Hinnawi—differed over relations with Damascus and the balance between local security and integration into the Syrian state. Armed factions also disputed representation. In February 2025, local groups announced the Suwayda Military Council to coordinate security and launched its operations at Al Kafr Agricultural Airport, south of Suwayda city. Hijri initially rejected the council’s authority to speak for the governorate’s Druze. The council expressed willingness to cooperate with the Syrian Democratic Forces. Talks in July on disarming local militias and reintegrating them into state forces ended without agreement.

Major clashes in July 2025 followed the robbery and abduction of a Druze vegetable seller on the Damascus–Suwayda highway and retaliatory abductions by Druze fighters. Fighting between Druze militias and Bedouin groups broke out on July 13. Al-Sharaa deployed government troops, whose entry into Suwayda brought further clashes. Government forces seized villages in the countryside, including At-Thaala and its large airbase. By July 15, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimated that 166 people had died in 72 hours. Evidence emerged in two cases of Bedouin fighters executing unarmed Druze civilians.

On July 15, Israel struck Syrian government military vehicles near Suwayda as government forces entered the city. The Israel Defense Forces also struck tanks moving toward the area and government assets in Damascus and elsewhere in southern Syria. Israel had pledged to protect Druze communities and opposed hostile forces establishing positions near its border. After the fighting and Israeli strikes, al-Sharaa withdrew government troops and left local Druze militias responsible for security. From July 17, 41 Arab tribes mobilized from across Syria and took control of large parts of the governorate. These Bedouin forces operated through separate tribal structures, rather than one unified command. Later counts placed the July death toll above 800, with more than 900 injured; by August, the reported death toll exceeded 1,000.

Present day

A US-brokered ceasefire brought a two-week pause, but fighting among Druze militias, Sunni Arab tribal forces and Syrian government troops resumed on August 3, 2025. Druze fighters attacked Tal Hadid in Suwayda’s western countryside, killing five government soldiers. Government forces counterattacked and recaptured positions at Tal Hadid, Rima Hazm and Walgha. The renewed clashes temporarily closed the Bosra al Sham corridor, a route for aid west of Suwayda city; it reopened on August 4. Suwayda’s future security arrangements remain tied to divisions among its spiritual leaders, armed groups and communities, as well as their relations with Damascus.