Mortal clashes fed by sectarian tensions exploded outside the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing at least 12 people, Syrian officials and a war monitoring group said Tuesday.
The fight was overnight from Monday to Tuesday in the suburb of Damascus de Jaramana, which has a large population of the Druse minority sect. He arrived after an audio clip circulated on the social networks of a man who insulted the prophet Muhammad. The clip was attributed to a clergyman Duse.
The religious figures of the cleric and Duse in Jaramana denied the accusation. The Syrian Interior Ministry said its initial findings showed that the cleric was not responsible and appealed for calm.
As public anger grew on the clip, the fighters not identified in accumulated armored vehicles outside Jaramana and began bombing the city, triggering heavy weapons battles, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a war monitoring group based in Great Britain.
It was the last wave of sectarian violence to hit Syria since the Islamist rebels overthrew the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December, fanning the fears among the many minority groups of the country that those rebels who now control the government and the army.
The audio clip also triggered demonstrations in several other cities, with some of the protesters who incite violence against druse, according to the Observatory.
The observatory did not say who was behind the attack against Jaramana, which also injured 15 people. But the local religious authorities of Duse in the city said in a statement that the government “is totally responsible for what happened and any situation of the situation.”
The spiritual leader of the Syrian Community Duse, Hikmat Al-Hijri, accused Islamist extremists of being behind the attacks. Mr. Al-Hijri is a vocal critic of the new rebel leadership of the country.
As the day arrived on Tuesday, the Syrian security forces deployed on the outskirts of Jaramana and placed a security cord around the area to avoid additional clashes, said the Ministry of Interior, and added that the members of government security.
Syrian officials later with religious figures of Duse and community leaders of Jaramana. They agreed to hold those involved in the responsible attack, according to the state news agency of Syria, healthy.
It was not the first time that the area had seen sectarian violence in recent months. Mortal fighting broke out in Jaramana in early March also, when Druse fought against battles with the security forces of the new government.
Syria is a predominantly Sunnite Muslim nation, while Druse practices a secret religion and is not considered Muslims. The rebels who led the overthrow of Mr. Al-Assad belonged to a Sunni Islamist group that was once linked to Al Qaeda.
The new leaders of the country have fought to integrate the complex network of armed groups operating throughout the country in the new state apparatus. Several of the strongest Druse militias are in conversations with the government about their conditions to integrate in the new army.
Syria has already seen a serious wave of sectarian murders. The incidents occurred last month in two coastal provinces that have large populations of Alauitas, the minority group to which the Assad family belongs. The area once formed the heart of Mr. Al-Assad’s support base.
The violence was with the Assad’s loyal ones that launched a coordinated attack against the forces of the new government in the coastal region. Thousands of pro -government subsidies assaulted the two provinces and killed more than 1,600 civilians, mostly Alauitas, in a few days, according to the Observatory.
The violence stressed the difficulty facing Syria’s new leaders in the control of the various armed groups and former rebels who have nominally join the government.
“There is a genuine fear between citizens and the city’s residents that the situation can slide into a dangerous spiral, repeating the gloomy experience of the coastal region,” said Rabe Mounzer, a community leader of Jaramana.