Druze residents near Syria’s capital are resisting a demand by the Islamist-led government to hand in their light weapons, saying authorities have yet to address fears of new attacks by Sunni Muslim militants after days of sectarian violence.

Clashes last week pitted Sunni fighters against armed Druze residents of the town of Jaramana southeast of Damascus, later spreading to another district near the capital and then south to the predominantly Druze province of Sweida.

Such violence threatens the new government’s control of Syria, where armed gangs are attacking religious minorities and Israel is stepping up its military intervention under the banner of protecting the Druze community.

Syrian authorities have negotiated deals to allow Druze fighters to protect their own areas as enlisted members of Syria’s security forces, but this week asked that all weapons held by residents of these areas be turned into the state.

“We told them, as soon as there is a state capable of regulating its forces, we’ll have no problem handing in our weapons,” said Makram Obeid, a member of the Jaramana committee that is negotiating with the Syrian government.

Obeid said his committee had told government officials it would be better for them to focus on disarming the gangs now harassing minorities.

“It’s our right to be scared, because we saw what happened in other areas,” he told Reuters, an apparent reference to killings in March of hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority to which former President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

It was the deadliest episode of sectarian violence in years in Syria, where a 14-year war ended last December when rebels toppled Assad, who fled to Russia.

“People want to feel safe. It’s enough to have [more than] 11 years of killing, strikes, and worries,” Obeid said. “And we’re coming to another phase that we thought, with the collapse of the regime, would leave us in a much better place. But until now, we don’t feel reassured.”

Fahad Haydar, a resident of Jaramana, echoed those fears.

“These weapons that are turned against us – that’s what we’re afraid of. If those weapons get handed in, then we’ll hand in ours,” he told Reuters.

SEEKING GUARANTEES

Mowaffaq Abu Shash, a Druze cleric in Jaramana, said the Druze had already compromised enough.

“We take one step, they ask for a second. We take the second step, they ask for a third,” he said. “We ask for a guarantee that what happened on the coast will not happen to us.”

One influential Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hajri, has called for international intervention to protect his community from Syria’s leaders, whom he has branded “terrorists.”

The Druze, an Arab minority sect who practice a religion originally derived from Islam, live in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and the Golan Heights. Israel has vowed to protect Syria’s Druze militarily if they face threats.

Last week’s violence was ignited by a voice recording purportedly cursing the Prophet Mohammad, which Sunni militants suspect was made by a Druze. More than a dozen people were killed in Jaramana before the violence spread west and south.

It also drew in Israel, which carried out a drone strike on what it said were fighters preparing to attack Druze in the town of Sahnaya, west of Jaramana. A Syrian security source told Reuters one member of the security forces was killed in the strike.

As the clashes reached Sweida province, Israel bombed near the presidential palace in Damascus – the clearest sign yet of its hostility towards Syria’s new leaders.

Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa once headed a branch of al Qaeda before renouncing ties to the group in 2016.

The post Druze Near Damascus Resist Demand to Turn in Arms as Tensions Boil first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Turkey’s Halkbank asked the US Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling saying it can be prosecuted for allegedly helping Iran evade American sanctions, a US-based lawyer for the bank said on Monday.

The Supreme Court had given Halkbank until Monday to file a petition appealing the Oct. 22, 2024, decision by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan allowing the prosecution.

In a letter to the appeals court, Halkbank‘s lawyer Robert Cary said the bank has filed the petition. The petition was not available on the Supreme Court‘s website. Cary did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Halkbank pleaded not guilty to fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges over its alleged use of money servicers and front companies in Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates to evade sanctions.

US prosecutors said Halkbank helped Iran secretly transfer $20 billion of restricted funds, converted oil revenue into gold and cash to benefit Iranian interests, and documented fake food shipments to justify transfers of oil proceeds.

Brought in 2019, the case has been a thorn in US-Turkey relations, with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan calling it an “unlawful, ugly” step.

The countries’ ties have soured in the last decade, amid disagreements on Syria, Ankara’s ties with Moscow, and other matters.

But on Monday, Erdogan and US President Donald Trump each said they had a very productive phone call earlier in the day, and had invited each other to their respective countries.

Halkbank‘s case is making a second trip to the Supreme Court.

In 2023, that court said Congress’ desire to shield foreign countries and their instrumentalities from civil liability under the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 did not cover criminal cases.

But in a 7-2 decision, it said the 2nd Circuit should more fully review whether common law immunity shielded Halkbank, leading to last October’s ruling.

The post Turkish Bank Appeals Iran Sanctions Decision to US Supreme Court first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

George Washington University (GW) has suspended the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter operating on its campus until Spring 2026, punishing the group for a series of unauthorized demonstrations it held on school property last month, according to a recent report in The GW Hatchet.

The move marks one of the severest disciplinary sanctions SJP has provoked from the GW administration since it began violating rules on peaceful expression and assembly, as well as targeting school officials for harassment, following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Until next May, SJP is barred from advertising and may only convene to “complete sanctions or consult with their advisor,” according to report.

A number of SJP chapters around the country have been disbanded or suspended by university administrators over the past two years.

The gatherings in question occurred during GW’s so-called “Palestine Liberation Week,” the Hatchet added. Administrators repeatedly told SJP to “cease” the activity, but it the ignored their directives, choosing instead to charge ahead with a “teach in” and another event to which it denied an administrator access. By the time the group’s leaders were hauled before the disciplinary panel which shut it down for an entire academic year, it had racked up a bundle of additional misconduct charges for, the Hatchet said, “disorderly conduct, discrimination, and non compliance” — of which it was ultimately found not guilty.

SJP will be placed on probation for one year after its suspension is lifted, the paper continued, during which it must request and acquire prior approval for any expressive activity. Additionally, members will be required to attend “teach-ins on university policy” for “ten consecutive semesters.”

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, George Washington University has been a hub of extreme anti-Zionist activity that school officials have struggled to quell. A major source of the troubling conduct is SJP, which recently escalated its behavior by issuing an ominous warning to a professor who was involved in crafting a proposal to relocate Palestinians in Gaza.

“This notice is to inform you that you are hereby evicted from the premises of the George Washington University,” SJP wrote in a missive it taped to the office door of international affairs professor Joseph Pelzman, who first shared the resettlement plan with Trump’s presidential campaign in July 2024, according to an account of events he described to the podcast “America, Baby!” the following month.

Denouncing Pelzman as the “architect of genocide,” SJP added, “Pelzman’s tenure is only one pernicious symptom of the bloodthirsty Zionism permeating our campus … The proprietors of this eviction notice demand your immediate removal.”

SJP’s threat to Pelzman, an accomplished academic who has focused heavily on the Middle East region, came as the group served probation for breaking a slew of school rules during the 2023-2024 academic year — a term which saw it heap abuse on school officials, visitors to campus representing former US President Joe Biden’s administration, and African Americans. Earlier this year, SJP held a “teach-in” that commemorated the First Intifada, an outbreak of Palestinian terrorism which began in Dec. 1987 and, lasting for nearly six years, claimed the lives of scores of Israelis.

 

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post George Washington University Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine for One Year first appeared on Algemeiner.com.