The sectarian-tinged violence was directed at a suburb of the Syrian capital with a large population from the Druse minority. Local Druse leaders said they held the government responsible.
Deadly clashes fueled by sectarian tensions erupted on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least nine people, Syrian officials and a war monitoring group said on Tuesday.
The violence erupted overnight from Monday to Tuesday in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, which has a large population from the minority Druse sect. It began after an audio clip circulated on social media of a man insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The clip was attributed to a Druse cleric.
The cleric and Druse religious figures in Jaramana denied the accusation. The Syrian Interior Ministry said that its initial findings showed that the cleric was not responsible and appealed for calm.
As public anger over the clip grew, fighters in armored vehicles amassed overnight outside Jaramana and began shelling the city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group based in Britain. Heavy gun battles also broke out.
The audio clip set off demonstrations in a number of other cities, with some of the protesters inciting violence against the Druse, according to the Observatory.
The Observatory did not say who was behind the attack on Jaramana, which also wounded 17 people. But local Druse religious authorities in the city said in a statement that they held the government “fully responsible for what happened and any worsening of the situation.”
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
