Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The Druze are the third-largest religious minority in Syria

Islamic State (IS) militants are holding more than 30 women and children hostage in south-western Syria, a monitor and local media say.

They are thought to have been seized during a wave of deadly IS attacks in Suweida province last week.

The Syrian government controls most of the region but IS militants hold a small amount of territory there.

Pro-government forces recently launched a campaign to retake remaining rebel- and jihadist-held areas in the south.

The abductions were reported by the Suwayda24 website and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, following a series of suicide bombings that targeted an area dominated by the Druze ethnic minority on 25 July. More than 200 people were killed.

The Druze are the third-largest religious minority in Syria and are considered to be heretics by IS jihadists.

The SOHR said that at least 36 women and children had been seized by IS.

Several women have since managed to escape, and two have died, the reports say.

Negotiations to secure their release are under way, according to Suwayda24.

The IS group has so far not spoken about the kidnappings.

Over the past year, IS fighters have lost most of the land they once held across Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

At the peak of the group's power, about 10 million people lived in IS-controlled areas, but the US military said earlier this year that the jihadists had been ousted from 98% of their former territory.

In Syria, the group is still present in small pockets in the southern provinces of Suweida and Deraa, as well as in parts of the country's east.</s>The Islamic State group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their village last week in Syria's Sweida, residents of the southern province and a monitor said Monday.

Sweida, which is mainly government-held and populated with members of Syria's Druze minority, had been largely insulated from the conflict raging in the rest of the country since 2011.

But on Wednesday, a string of suicide blasts and shootings claimed by IS left more than 250 people dead in the provincial capital and nearby villages, most of them civilians.

After the attack IS jihadists also abducted several dozen women and children from one village, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Sweida residents.

The Britain-based Observatory said 36 Druze women and children were abducted, but that four women had since managed to escape while another two had died.

That left 14 women and 16 children in IS captivity, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. Another 17 men were unaccounted for, but it was unclear if they were also kidnapped.

IS has not claimed the kidnappings and no details on them could be found on its propaganda channels.

According to news outlet Sweida24, the 36 civilians were kidnapped on Wednesday from the village of Al-Shabki, in the eastern hinterlands of Sweida province.

Sweida24 and other online outlets published a video that appeared to show one of the hostages making demands of the Syrian government, purportedly on IS's behalf.

AFP could not independently verify its authenticity, but several Sweida residents confirmed that a woman appearing in the footage was among those missing after the attacks.

The hostages mainly hail from two large families in Al-Shabki, said reporter Nour Radwan, who heads Sweida24.

The remote village lies in the eastern edges of Sweida province and suffered some of the deadliest violence from Wednesday's attacks, with more than 60 civilians killed in Al-Shabki alone, Radwan said.

"Most of its residents are farmers and don't have much more than hunting rifles in terms of weapons, so there was little resistance from Al-Shabki compared to other villages," he told AFP.

"When IS saw that, it kidnapped a first batch of people from their homes and took them east towards the Badiya, according to survivors," Nour added.

The Badiya is Syria's vast desert, which stretches from the country's centre to its eastern border with Iraq and includes several isolated IS-held pockets.

IS has also reached out to the families of those abducted with pictures and videos.

The jihadists are demanding the release by the Syrian government "of detained IS-linked people, whose numbers are now being negotiated", said Radwan.

IS also wants a halt to a Syrian regime offensive on jihadist positions, he said.

Religious leaders from the Druze community have since stepped in, Radwan and another local source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.

"As of Sunday, the hostages were still being held in the Badiya. Negotiations are happening between Daesh and Druze sheikhs," said the source, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

IS has lost urban strongholds in Syria but still holds parts of the Badiya, including northeastern areas in Sweida and territory by the Iraqi border.

The jihadists also control a pocket in Daraa province, directly west of Sweida.

Backed by Russia, Syrian troops have been waging an assault on an IS-held pocket of Daraa for nearly two weeks.

On Monday, they began bombing operations ahead of an attack on the main IS-held town of Ash-Shajara in Daraa, Syrian state television said.

Since its bloody rise to power in 2014, IS has carried out multiple mass abductions in Syria and Iraq, including of minorities.

It kidnapped more than 220 Assyrian Christians in northeast Syria in 2015 and another 270 Christians from a central village the following year. Most of the hostages were released after negotiations.

Under the group's ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, minorities are considered "infidels" but IS also politicises them as regime loyalists.

More than 350,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011.

Wednesday's violence was the worst Sweida had seen since the war began, and one of IS's deadliest attacks across the country.

IS attackers detonated suicide bombs in Sweida city and villages to the north and east, while others shot and stabbed residents.

A total of 139 civilians were among more than 250 people killed, according to the Observatory. The remaining were pro-government fighters or residents who had picked up arms to defend their homes.</s>Druze hold Syrian flags during a rally in Buq’ata near the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Thursday (Retures photo)

BEIRUT — Syria’s Druze minority, targeted by deadly Daesh group attacks and kidnappings last week in Sweida, had managed to keep itself relatively insulated from the country’s seven-year war.

Here is a summary of the community’s profile, its role in Syria’s conflict and previous attacks against it.

With around 700,000 people, the Druze community accounted for around three per cent of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million.

They are located mainly in the southern province of Sweida with smaller pockets around Damascus and in the northwest, although some have fled extremist held parts of the latter area.

Some 200,000 Druze are located in neighbouring Lebanon and over 100,000 are in Israel, while 18,000 live in the Israeli-occupied Golan.

Syria’s Druze have been split by the uprising that erupted in 2011 against President Bashar Assad, who had long portrayed himself as a protector of the country’s minorities.

Druze should not be seen “as being neutral in this war — it’s more multifaceted and the Druze are not a monolithic bloc”, said Tobias Lang, an analyst focused on Druze populations in the Middle East.

One of the first soldiers to defect from Syria’s army in protest at its handling of demonstrations was Druze officer Khaldun Zeineddine, who later died in clashes against regime forces.

Others remained firmly loyal, like General Issam Zahreddine, one of the highest-ranking Druze army officers who died last year in a mine blast after battling the Daesh group in Syria’s east.

Druze leaders have often tried to maintain a precarious relationship with the regime to keep their areas autonomous and spare them from government attacks.

One symbol of that complex relationship was Wahid Al Balous, a Druze religious authority who pushed for the sect’s soldiers to be deployed near their hometowns, rather than in other provinces.

Balous, who died in a car bomb attack in Sweida in 2015, spoke out against both extremists and Assad.

Syria’s Druze have protected their heartland in Sweida with their own forces.

The most powerful has been the Sheikhs of Dignity, which was headed by Balous and included fighters and other religious figures.

Sheikhs of Dignity has fought fierce battles against the Daesh group and Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Other militia have been closely linked to the regime, including the Dareh Al Watan (Shield of the Nation), a Druze force founded in April 2015 with 2,000 fighters.

The militia appear to have protected Sweida’s sons from compulsory military service, with authorities turning a blind eye so long as young men fight in units not opposed to the regime.

Suicide bombs and shootings carried out by Daesh in Sweida last Wednesday left more than 250 people dead, mostly civilians, and the extremists reportedly kidnapped more than 30 Druze women and children.

The attacks were by far the worst against the Druze community in seven years of war, but they were not the first.

A car bomb in 2012 ripped through Damascus’ Jaramana suburb, which is mostly Druze and Christian.

In 2013 and 2014, fierce fighting between Syrian rebels and pro-regime Druze forces rocked Sweida province and Druze areas closer to Damascus.

That same year, 20 Druze Syrians were killed in a shoot-out with Al Qaeda extremists in the village of Qalb Lawzah in northwestern Idlib province.

Druze residents of Qalb Lawzah had come out against the regime a year into Syria’s uprising.

In 2016, Daesh beheaded four labourers in an area it controlled outside Damascus, accusing them of being Druze.

And in 2017, a car bomb killed nine people in Hader, a regime-held village in the southwestern province of Quneitra mostly populated by Druze.</s>Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analyses from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.

Photos of 14 terrified young girls and women kidnapped July 25 when ISIS attacked the predominantly Druze city of Suwayda and massacred at least 255 civilians there were sent to their families over the weekend. The pictures, which have gone viral, show the hostages against the backdrop of ISIS’ black and white flag. The Islamic jihadis have threatened to harm the women if the Damascus regime does not halt its offensive against the rebel-held pocket in the Yarmouk Valley near Jordan and the Golan Heights.



Thousands of Druze in the Galilee and the village of Buqata on the Golan Heights gathered over the weekend to discuss the massacre of their co-religionists in Syria. “Our hearts and our prayers today are with the Druze in Syria after the massacre of Da’ash in which more than 260 Druze were killed in cold blood, mostly women and children,” tweeted Reda Mansour, a former Israel ambassador to Brazil, and a well-known Druze poet.





In an interview with Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis research fellow Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, Abbas Abu Shaheen – a leader of the Druze in Suwayda – said that 90% of those who were killed were civilians. According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 142 civilians and 113 government fighters were killed, in addition to 63 ISIS fighters. More than 200 others were reportedly injured.ISIS suicide bombers penetrated Suwayda (pop. 170,000) and sent teams of fighters in vehicles to raid Druze villages east of the city. Villagers battled with ISIS for three days. Videos online showed that some villagers rescued families who had been kidnapped.Druze fighters found in the villages they liberated from ISIS evidence of mass murder, similar in scope and to the ISIS attack on Kobani in June 2015 when 100 ISIS fighters killed mostly Kurdish women and children in eastern Syria in a raid. In the Suwayda hinterland, ISIS fighters went house to house slaughtering the inhabitants.The ISIS attack targeting Druze is the first of its kind in the seven-year-long Syrian civil war. ISIS has targeted other minorities, committing genocide against Yazidis in northern Iraq, and driving Christians from their homes in Syria and Iraq. Syria’s Druze minority has been protected, and its communities remained under regime control. Al-Qaeda in Syria, known as the Nusra front in 2015, massacred 20 Druze that year.While the ISIS attack on Suwayda was ostensibly in response to the regime’s offensive against the ISIS enclave in southern Syria, the attack against the Druze has raised questions. Some pro-regime supporters suggested that the Druze area lacked security because the regime was punishing the Druze for avoiding military service. However Druze pointed out that many families in Suwayda have men serving in the Syrian Arab Army.They faulted the government for transferring ISIS militants to the Syrian Desert in May after they surrendered their stronghold in Yarmouk near Damascus. The now destroyed and deserted neighborhood, which was once home to the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria with a population of 112,550 registered refugees in 2002, had been besieged by government forces since 2015.Another conspiracy claimed that ISIS infiltrated Suwayda by sweeping around 100 km. to the east to the desert area of desert near the US-run Tanf base on the border with Jordan. Abu Shaheen told al-Tamimi that ISIS “coordinated with the Tanf base, and entered the villages of al-Shabaki, Rami and al-Ghayda.”The competing theories suggest that the attack on Suwayda will lead to rancor between the Druze community – which demands protection – and the Syrian regime, which is focused on fighting in southern Syria and has not sent enough troops to defeat ISIS. Now both the Druze and the regime are alert to further ISIS attacks. However the kidnapping of 14 women, and the broadcasting of their photos, underscores ISIS’ continuing threat. A video posted online at the website Badia24 claimed to show one of the women pleading that Syrian President Bashar Assad halt the attack on the Yarmouk basin.</s>ISIS kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their village last week in Syria's Sweida, it has been revealed.

Sweida, which is mainly government-held and populated with members of Syria's Druze minority, had been largely insulated from the conflict raging in the rest of the country since 2011.

But on Wednesday, a string of suicide blasts and shootings claimed by ISIS left more than 250 people dead in the provincial capital and nearby villages, most of them civilians.

During the attack, ISIS jihadists also abducted several dozen women and children from one village, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Sweida residents.

The Britain-based Observatory said 36 Druze women and children were abducted, but that four women had since managed to escape while another two had died.

That left 14 women and 16 children in ISIS captivity, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman. Another 17 men were unaccounted for but it was unclear if they were also kidnapped.

ISIS has not claimed the kidnappings and no details on them could be found on its propaganda channels.

According to news outlet Sweida24, the 36 civilians were kidnapped Wednesday from the village of Al-Shabki, in the eastern hinterlands of Sweida province.

Sweida24 and other online outlets published a video that appeared to show one of the female hostages making demands of the Syrian government on behalf of ISIS.

AFP could not independently verify its authenticity, but several Sweida residents confirmed the woman was among those missing after the attacks.

Druze, who made up three percent of Syria's pre-war population, are monotheistic and considered Muslim, but the sect is otherwise highly secretive, includes mystical elements like reincarnation, and does not allow new converts.

They are regarded as heretics by Sunni Muslim extremist groups including ISIS.

The hostages mainly hail from two large families in Al-Shabki, said reporter Nour Radwan, who heads Sweida24.

The remote village suffered some of the deadliest violence from Wednesday's attacks, with more than 60 civilians killed there, Radwan said.

'Most of its residents are farmers and don't have much more than hunting rifles in terms of weapons, so there was little resistance from Al-Shabki compared to other villages,' he told AFP.

'When ISIS saw that, it kidnapped a first batch of people from their homes and took them east towards the Badiya, according to survivors,' Nour added.

The Badiya is Syria's vast desert stretching from the country's centre to its eastern border with Iraq, and it includes several isolated ISIS-held pockets.

ISIS then reached out to the hostage's families with pictures, videos, and ransom demands.

The jihadists want the Syrian government to release 'detained ISIS-linked people, whose numbers are now being negotiated,' and stop its offensive on nearby ISIS positions, said Radwan.

Druze religious leaders have since stepped in, Radwan and another source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.

'As of Sunday, the hostages were still being held in the Badiya. Negotiations are happening between Daesh (ISIS) and Druze sheikhs,' said the source.

'The massacres were massive, and so is the pain. There are families that were entirely wiped out,' said Noura al-Basha, an activist from Sweida.

'One young man from the Abu Ammar family in Al-Shabki lost his father and brother in the attacks. His mother was unaccounted for until they found her two days ago near the village, and his cousins are among those kidnapped,' Basha told AFP.

In addition to territory it holds in the Badiya, ISIS also controls a pocket in Daraa province, directly west of Sweida.

Backed by Russia, Syrian troops have been waging an assault on that ISIS-held patch for nearly two weeks.

On Monday, they overran the jihadist-controlled town of Ash-Shajara just a few hours after beginning to bomb it, Syrian state media said.

That has left just three villages under ISIS contol in Daraa, said the Observatory, but there are fears that hundreds of jihadists may have slipped away unharmed.

Since its bloody rise in 2014, IS has carried out multiple mass abductions in Syria and Iraq, including of minorities.

It kidnapped more than 220 Assyrian Christians in northeast Syria in 2015 and another 270 Christians from a central village the following year. Most of the hostages were released after negotiations.

Under the group's ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, minorities are considered 'infidels' but IS also politicises them as regime loyalists.

More than 350,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in 2011.

Wednesday's violence was the worst Sweida had seen since the war began, and one of the deadliest attacks by IS across the country.

ISIS attackers detonated suicide bombs in Sweida city and villages to the north and east, while others shot and stabbed residents.

A total of 139 civilians were among more than 250 people killed, according to the Observatory. The other dead were pro-government fighters or residents who picked up arms to defend their homes.</s>The main leader of the Druze sect in Lebanon on Friday attacked the Syrian government for failing to stop an Islamic State massacre of Druze in Syria, saying it should have noticed the militants gathering to attack.

“No one can tell me that the squadrons of many American, Russian and foreign planes did not see this gathering which suddenly took the regime by surprise and raided Jebel al-Arab,” said Walid Jumblatt.

Islamic State’s assault on the city of Sweida and nearby villages in the Jebel al-Arab area on Thursday killed more than 200 people, many of them civilians.

Syrian state media said the army had intervened and battled the militants with both ground forces and air strikes.

Jumblatt, who heads the largest Druze political party in Lebanon, is a strong critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Other Druze parties are pro-Damascus.

He also accused Assad of wanting to send Druze from the Jebel al-Arab area including the city of Sweida to fight in a future offensive against rebels in Idlib province in northern Syria.

Many community leaders and top Druze religious leaders have refused to sanction enlistment in the army during Syria’s seven-year conflict.

“They want to sacrifice the youths of Jebel al-Arab in Idlib,” Jumblatt said.

He asked Assad’s main ally Russia to help prevent that.

“We want its (Russia’s) guarantee to the people of the Jebel that they will remain in the Jebel and not be used by Bashar as fodder, living or dead, for his personal ends.”</s>The Daesh terror group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children during attacks on their villages last week in Syria's southern province of Sweida, a monitor said Monday.

"At least 36 Druze women and children were abducted after the attacks," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Raids and suicide bombings carried out by Daesh in Sweida province killed more than 250 people last week.

Both the Britain-based monitor and Syrian news outlet Sweida24 said 20 women and 16 children were abducted.

Four of the women had since managed to escape and another two had died, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

Another 17 men from the areas targeted by Daesh were still unaccounted for, but it was unclear if they were also kidnapped, he told AFP.

Daesh has not claimed the kidnappings, and no details on them could be found on its propaganda channels.

The attacks on Sweida were the terror group's deadliest assault in months.

Regime television said the army was targeting Daesh in the province's east, and state news agency SANA reported "army units blocked a Daesh attack on a number of villages in northeastern Sweida, killing a large number" of the terrorists.

Despite pro-regime forces ousting the group from urban centers in eastern Syria last year, surprise Daesh raids in recent months have killed dozens of regime and allied fighters.

The regime of Bashar Assad has in recent weeks ousted opposition forces from a majority of the country's south, part of which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

His forces are now closing in on a patch of territory in nearby Daraa province held by militant group Jaish Khaled bin al-Walid, which has pledged allegiance to Daesh.

The group, which has around 1,000 fighters in the region, has been the target of an intense bombing campaign by Russian and Syrian jets in recent days.

SANA said the Daesh attacks on neighboring Sweida were an attempt to relieve pressure "on Daesh remnants facing their inevitable end in the western Daraa countryside."

Daesh overran large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a self-styled "caliphate" in territory it held.

The terrorists have since been ousted from all major urban centers in both countries, but they retain a presence including in desert border areas.

In Syria, Daesh controls a pocket of the eastern province of Deir El-Zour on the Iraqi border, and is present in parts of the vast central Badiya desert including in Sweida.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria's war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests.</s>36 women, children kidnapped by IS in Syria

BEIRUT: The Islamic State group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their villages last week in Syria’s southern province of Sweida, a monitor said on Monday.

More than 250 people were killed on Wednesday when IS carried out a string of suicide attacks and shootings in the provincial capital Sweida and villages to the north and east. "At least 36 Druze women and children were abducted after the attacks," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria. Four of the women had since managed to escape and another two had died, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.</s>The Islamic State group kidnapped dozens of Druze women and children when it attacked their villages last week in Syria's southern province of Sweida, a monitor said Monday.

More than 250 people were killed on Wednesday when IS carried out a string of suicide attacks and shootings in the provincial capital Sweida and villages to the north and east.

"At least 36 Druze women and children were abducted after the attacks," said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.

Four of the women had since managed to escape and another two had died, said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman.

Another 17 men from the areas targeted by IS were still unaccounted for, but it was unclear if they were also kidnapped, he told AFP.

Both the Observatory and Syrian news outlet Sweida24 said 20 women and 16 children had been kidnapped.

IS has not claimed the kidnappings, and no details on them could be found on its propaganda channels.

IS declared a self-styled Islamic "caliphate" in 2014 across Syria and Iraq, but has since lost most of that territory.

It still holds small, isolated areas of Syria's remote desert, which includes northeastern parts of Sweida, as well as pockets in the adjacent province of Daraa and further east near the border with Iraq.

Backed by Russia, Syrian troops have been waging an assault on an IS-held pocket of Daraa for more than a week.

Sweida, which is mostly held by the government and populated by the secretive Druze minority, has been relatively insulated from the violence of Syria's seven-year war.

Last week's attacks were the bloodiest ever in the province and among the deadliest waged by IS in Syria.</s>More than 150 dead in Daesh attacks in southern Syria

Negotiations between Syrian regime forces and the Daesh terror group for an exchange of prisoners in southern Syria failed to reach an agreement after Daesh imposed new conditions, activists said Tuesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the talks were meant to lead to a deal under which Daesh would release captive civilians — about 30 women and children abducted last week during fighting in the southern province of Sweida.

In return, the regime was to free 150 captured Daesh fighters and open a corridor for 100 besieged Daesh-linked fighters to leave the area of the fighting.

The Observatory said that instead, regime forces resumed airstrikes on Tuesday, targeting some of the besieged Daesh-linked fighters near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Sweida24, an activist collective, said the talks collapsed after Daesh put new conditions, including withdrawal of Syrian troops from Sweida and a commitment by the province's residents not to take part in any attacks on Daesh in the future.

The collective also listed the names of the 30 civilians abducted last Wednesday, when a wave of Daesh attacks in Sweida and the provincial capital killed more than 200 people.

Those abducted are members of the minority Druze community.

The Druze, followers of an esoteric offshoot of Islam, have kept their own local militias in the area. Daesh views them as apostates. The militants also have a history of abducting members of other religious minorities and keeping women as sex slaves.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports that ISIL militants are holding more than 30 Druze women and children hostage following last week's attacks on Druze villages in the As-Suwayda Governorate.