The coach stimulated the ground of a mountain encycle in southwestern Syria, shouting with dozens of new recruits while they perforated the sprints between barricades made with old car tires.
“You have to practice as if it were real,” the instructor shouted, Fadi Azam. “Do you want me to start shooting instead to make it real?” He said, lifting the rifle and shooting a few shots from the group, the paw of the paw of shots that he echoed through the valley on a lively morning recently.
“You are lions, lions!” Azam shouted to the recruits, some of the tens of thousands of fighters of the Religious Druse of Syria whose powerful militias control the robust province of Sweida, to the south -ovest of the capital, Damascus. Sweida is the heart of Druse – a strategically important region on the border with Jordan and near Israel – and these fighters are about to play a small but essential role in the future of Syria.
While the Islamist rebels who ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December created a new government, they are trying to bend the dispatched militias including this, which was born during the civil war of almost 14 years of Syria, in a single national force. A unified soldier is essential to guarantee control over the entire country and establish stability, but this goal has proved elusive.
Since January, many of the strongest druse militias were in negotiations with the government on their conditions to join the new army. They were skeptics on the commitments of the President to Interim to protect the rights of the many religious and ethnic minorities of Syria.
Those talks blocked last month after an outbreak of violence against another religious minority, increasing the concerns of druse. Violence began with an attack by the remains of the old regime on the security forces of the new government in a region dominated by the Alawite sect, a derivation of the Shiite Islam. The Al-Assad family is Alawiti and during the five decades of the family that governs Syria, often give priority to the members of the sect regarding safety and military works.
The government replied by mobilizing its security forces, that other armed and civil groups have joined, according to the witnesses and groups for the rights. These fighters-there nominally under the control of the government and others outside of it-they killed hundreds of Alawiti civilians in what the rights of rights said they were sectarian attacks.
The leaders of the Druse militia also accused the provisional president, Ahmed al-Shara, of monopoly of power. Al-Shara and many in his cohort were part of an Islamist rebel group, dominated by the members of the Syrian Sunni Muslim majority, who was once linked to Al Qaeda. They initially showed little will to give in power in their new government to minorities.
However, when Al-Shara announced a guardian government at the end of Saturday, his choices recognized the pressure to form an inclusive administration that represents the different ethnic and religious groups of Syria to a certain extent. He appointed a Minister of Kurdish education, a Christian minister and a minister of druse, among others. However, the crucial ministries of defense, foreign affairs and interiors will be managed by the President’s close allies.
Another powerful militia, a guided force in Kurdish that governs much of the north-eastern Syria and is supported by the United States, has agreed a preliminary agreement to join the national army but has not yet integrated, expressing concerns similar to those of the druse.
Unless you can convince the druse militias and other armed groups to integrate into a national army, Al-Shara will have to face a difficult choice. He must accept to sell some authorities and establish a slightly decentralized government or risk only a part of the country, just as Al-Assad did during the civil war.
Al-Shara “is in a political stalemate with the druse and the Kurds and does not have much leverage,” said Mohammad al-Abdallah, Syrian political analyst.
In the meantime, the druse militias have strengthened their ranks, exercising authority throughout the region to fill the safety void left by the collapse of the Assad regime. The training of recruits recently in Sweida was part of the mountain brigade, one of the many druse militias that emerged during the civil war. The ranks of the brigade swelling from 2,000 fighters to over 7,000, say their leaders, in the midst of the uncertainty of this transition of power.
“We want to defend our people, to defend our homeland,” said Rakan Kahool, 28 years old, who enrolled with the militia in January. “Sweida people should protect Sweida.”
New recruits such as Mr. Kahool and veterans fighters have acted as the De facto police and security forces for the province of Sweida, who have control places and patrol the border with Jordan.
The commander of the mountain brigade, Sheqib Azam, said in an interview that the leaders of the Druse militia wanted to give the interim government the opportunity to test themselves. “If the new government works in the right way, we will join them,” said Azam. “And otherwise, we will fight them.”
He took part in the discussions with the new authorities of Syria for adherence to the national army who has reached a blind end in recent weeks.
“We want to be part of the state, to have a say in political decisions,” he said. But he added: “It’s too early to give up our weapons.”
If Druse’s militias had an agreement with the new government, their fighters will be fundamental to maintain safety in the south -in the face of the threats of the Islamic State, armed remains of the regime and the criminal groups of Assad, as well as Israeli raids along the southern border. Any interruptions could immerse Syria in another cycle of violence and faction.
Israel’s actions in response to the collapse of the Assad regime are injecting even more uncertainty in the political landscape of the south -western Syria. Israel wants to make sure that no hostile forces consolidated in the parts of Syria near its borders, where they could easily launch attacks against Northern Israel while Hezbollah, a group supported by Iran, has done for years by the nearby Lebanon.
And the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel will not tolerate the presence of Muslim forces Sunnite by Mr. Al-Shara south of Damascus. Israeli officials referred to those forces as extremists.
Since the Assad regime fell, Israel has affected several hundred objectives in Syria, eliminating the deposits of weapons and other military assets of the former regime to prevent them from falling in the hands anyone hostile to Israel, according to Israeli officials.
Israeli officials also warned the Syrian authorities who would have intervened militarily to protect druse from any repression of the government, an overwhelming that reflects the strong relationship that the Israeli state has with its own minority of druses. Druse, which practices a religion that is a derivation of the Shiite Islam, can also be found in Lebanon and Jordan.
The main Syrian Druse militias rejected the offer.
Although they have not yet accepted to join the national military, the militia of druses and religious leaders have established informal agreements with the new authorities that allow them to receive government aid while maintaining their military control over Sweida.
In January, Azam said, accepted that he had an official of the former rebel group of Mr. Al-Shara acts as a temporary provincial governor of Sweida, provided that the forces of the government do not take sides in Sweida.
In the weeks following the arrival of the provisional governor, Mustafa Yasin Baquer, hundreds of people crowded each day in his office to request support. Electricity works only for one hour a day, the residents say. The water supply is irregular. Some want the earth to be stolen by the Assad government has returned to them. Others, who once rely on the subsidized bread under the old sovereigns, implored similar aid.
“The infrastructure is completely destroyed,” Baquer said in an interview. While the negotiations with the Druse militias continue, the transition government must “intervene and try to stabilize the situation,” he added.
Many residents in Sweida share that feeling.
A recent afternoon, Janat Abu al-Fadl, 55 years old, got in the suitcase along the narrow streets of pebbles of the Sweida market with his daughter. While both were uncertain about the new Syrian authorities, Mrs. Al-Fadl said she hoped for the first time the future of Syria in decades.
“It will take time and at the beginning there will be a difficult period, but in the end I think things will improve,” he said. “Before the regime fall, we had no hope,” he added. “Now, at least, we have something.”