Sirene who sneaks up, a truck of armed men who dragged himself into his wake, on Friday morning the vehicle of black sports utility that cut sharks through the Syrian city of Ashrafieh Sahnaya.
The government forces had resumed control by the armed groups that transformed the city into a sectarian battlefield for two days this week, killing dozens and exhibiting for everyone to see the trembling of the new Syrian leaders on safety. Now, government representatives had arrived to commit peace to a skeptical city.
In a hairy and echage religious meeting room, two officials in the jacket and tie sat on the shoulder with the leader with the white beard of the religious minority of druses in the traditional white hats with red peaks, speaking of units.
“We are all in a ship,” said Jameel Mudawwar, the maximum official of the area. “If he sinks, God prohibits, we will sink everyone.”
The words were not new, but this time they arrived with the action.
The main druse militias of Syria, which control a strategic band of southern Syria near Israel, resisted a push by the new Islamist government to be folded in the national army, fearing that access would endanger their people.
But while the bloodshed mounted this week, the local leaders of Druse to Ashrafieh Sahnaya went to the other side. In exchange for government concessions, including promises to investigate the abuses committed during the clashes, they agreed to surrender to their weapons and integrate some fighters in government forces.
“We should love each other and we should all stay with the other,” he told the 86 -year -old chief of the city, the sheikh Abu Rabih Haj Ali, at Friday's meeting. “We don't want to bring weapons. We don't want to be against the state.”
It was what the government hoped to hear for months now, after the rebels of the Sunni Muslim majority have reversed the Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in December. But many Syrians of the many religious and ethnic minorities of the country remain wary of their new leaders in the midst of repeated spasms of violence that aim for minorities, including druse.
This week, a brazen audio clip that claims to be of a cleric of druse that insults the prophet Muhammad incited the sunny extremists to attack druses, also to Ashrafieh Sahnaya, south of Damascus, the capital. At least 101 people were killed, including government forces, fighters and civil drives, according to the Syrian observatory for human rights, a war monitor based in Great Britain.
In Ashrafieh Sahnaya, where several seven have been coexisting for some time peacefully, mortars and shells crashed into the buildings. The drones affected the sky and residents curled up at home while the local Druse militia fighters fought the government forces and armed summary extremists.
The rebellious coalition that overturned al-Assad included some extremist Islamist factions that remain outside the central control and that the Syrian authorities have shown little ability to curb.
Israel, whose government is close to Druse's Israeli minority, was therefore intervened in the name of the Syrian protection Druse, launching air attacks on the objectives of the Syrian government.
There are more than one million druses throughout the Middle East, mainly in Syria and Lebanon, and some in Jordan and Israel. They practice a secret branch of Islam.
On Friday, the bloodshed of blood seemed even more wound raw than many.
A man at the meeting on Friday requested reassurances of the government on security. Arranged with the conciliatory tone of the others present, he accused the pro-government forces of massacring civilians.
The officials of the meeting asked for patience.
“We are promising you a better life,” said Mudawwar, government official. “What will happen to you will happen. It is the duty of the government to protect everyone.”
Some listeners bought it.
Saleh Makiki, Haj Ali's grandson, said he lost five relatives this week, including his father, a son and an uncle. Yet he said he was willing to go on.
“Errors have occurred, but now we have insurance,” he said. The government subsequently issued 32 local men held during the clashes, satisfying a key demand for druses.
Outside the meeting room, however, the opinions were divided.
On the other side of the road, Bahira Haj Ali, 42 years old, spread out the window to look at the sheikh, a relative, leaving.
“It's nice that men had to resist,” said local Druse militias. “You can't imagine the sounds we heard: shells, drones.” It was difficult to trust government forces, he said, however, he added, he could feel different if Ashrafieh Sahnaya's men unite.
As for the weapons of Druse Militias, Mrs. Haj Ali said: “This is our security. It shouldn't be renounced.”
In the city, there was disagreement on how violence had started.
Some Sunnis said that Druse's militants had attacked the government checkpoints after the extremists attacked a nearby city, while some druses said that the Sunnis extremists had struck first.
Around the city square, broken glasses and bullets of bullets have disseminated the ground. Dozens of young people marched in the square after Friday prayers ended in a nearby mosque, shaking the flag of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the former Sunni rebel group that took power in December.
“One, one, one,” they sang. “The Syrian people are one.”
But more often, it was their sect, not their country, which they underlined.
“These are the Sunnis,” they sang. “The prophet Muhammad is our eternal leader.”