Suwayda militia leaders announce new military council in southern Syria

# Suwayda militia leaders announce new military council in southern Syria

Event date: 2025-02-24

Militia leaders in Syria's southern Suwayda province have announced the start of work by a new military council, according to a local report carried by El Manshar. The council's backers say the project is meant to organize local armed factions under a more structured command and to present a political vision built around secularism, decentralization and what they describe as regional peace and justice.

The report says the council began operating at the agricultural airfield in southern Suwayda, where dozens of local residents gathered. It was originally formed after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's government under the name "temporary military council," with an early focus on preventing security breakdown and protecting the province after many state-security personnel left the area.

The new version of the project appears broader. According to the source, council leader Tariq al-Shoufi says the aim is to stop uncontrolled weapons, bring local factions into a unified framework and support what he calls a future Syrian national army. He also described the council as part of a new Syrian state based on democratic and secular principles and local decentralization.

Those claims point to an ambitious political agenda, not just a local security committee. The report says the council sees itself as a vehicle for organizing armed groups, confronting smuggling, border crime and terrorism, and protecting Suwayda from external threats. It also references the southern border with Israel and Jordan, suggesting the council is trying to position itself as a security actor in a highly sensitive border province.

At the same time, the report makes clear that the project faces resistance inside the Druze community. Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, the Druze spiritual leader, rejected the council and called its members separatists. He said they had no mandate to represent the Druze or to lead the province. That rejection matters because it shows the new body does not speak for the whole local community, even if it includes a number of armed factions.

The source also says some Druze factions have been pushing for local self-rule, while other figures in the province have warned against handing weapons to the council. That internal split is likely to shape whether the council can move from announcement to real authority.

For now, the development signals that Suwayda's armed and political landscape remains unsettled. The council's supporters are presenting it as a way to restore order and define a future role for the province. Its critics see a rival power center. In a region where state authority has already weakened, the announcement is another sign that local groups are trying to fill the gap with their own structures, their own language of legitimacy and their own idea of Syria's future.