The first wave of the military–security operation against Suwayda, led by the forces of the Ministries of Defense and Interior in the “Transitional Administration,” with the participation of extremist elements and others from tribal groups, took place between July 13–16. It primarily consisted of coordinated action with three small Druze military and security groups loyal to the Transitional Administration, alongside persistent attempts to secure political cover from Druze notables and politicians.
This coordination and preparation for the “operation” was not improvised; it was preceded by efforts to build military and security groups affiliated with the “Transitional Administration” inside Suwayda, as well as political groundwork aimed at penetrating the governorate by courting social leaders, religious figures, and politicians.
While this article focuses on the military and security role of the three Druze groups, it does not treat the political and social role as a “conspiracy,” but rather as the calculated moves of local actors whose positions shifted with the evolution of events, most of whom quickly reversed their earlier stances after the atrocities and crimes against humanity of an exterminatory nature committed by the Transitional Administration against the Druze became clear.
Given the sensitivity of the subject, this report relies primarily on publicly available information and on exclusive interviews conducted by the researcher with sources and witnesses familiar with the course of events, the negotiations, the preparations for the military operation, and its realities on the ground.
While the article avoids naming politicians, notables, and religious figures, it sets out in detail the military and security role played by the three Druze military and security groups loyal to the Transitional Administration.
Political Cover
Since the fall of the regime, the Transitional Administration had sought to win over Druze communal, religious, social, and political leaders from Suwayda, in order to form a pressure bloc against Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, the pivotal figure in dealings with the new authority in Damascus. The Sheikh’s positions toward the Damascus authority grew more uncompromising with each failure by the Transitional Administration to meet major political milestones: from the Victory Conference, to the Dialogue Conference, to the Constitutional Declaration, and the Transitional Government. These moments revealed, step by step, the extent to which Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham monopolized power and rejected any genuinely participatory democratic process despite its formal announcement of self-dissolution.
The massacres against Alawites in March, followed by the sectarian attacks targeting Druze communities in Jaramana and Sahnaya in April and May, only hardened Sheikh al-Hijri’s refusal to be drawn into the “Transitional Administration’s” project. Meanwhile, the administration sought to rally Druze notables and politicians discontented with the Sheikh’s growing popularity—those who at times described his role as “obstructive” to reaching an agreement with the emerging “state” in Damascus.
This outreach took a political form through several initiatives, the most developed of which was a movement—never realized—under the banner “No to Unilateral Decision-Making in Suwayda.” It was expected to be announced at the end of March 2025 and would have included social and spiritual notables, as well as politicians from the governorate, in the presence of a prominent Lebanese Druze figure. According to one of the organizers, who spoke to the author, the movement never materialized in practice, but the choice of participating notables and spiritual leaders was not random. It was based on the historical divisions of local Druze leadership and their respective areas of influence, which gave the initiative some weight in western rural Suwayda and the city of Suwayda.
Although the political presence was marginal and lacked deep social roots, the involvement of these notables and religious figures set off alarm bells for the spiritual leadership of the Druze, headed by Sheikh al-Hijri. He moved to contain the situation and gradually persuaded these social and religious authorities to withdraw from the initiative.
During the armed attacks led by the Transitional Administration in April and May against Druze in Jaramana and Sahnaya in rural Damascus, as well as villages in northern and western rural Suwayda, both sides reached an agreement on May 1. The agreement stipulated that “public security” within the governorate would be in the hands of Suwayda’s own residents, and that the authority would protect the Damascus–Suwayda road.
However, the Damascus authority appeared to view this as a political setback. It began to work on multiple fronts: betting on tensions along the road between the capital and the southern governorate, stirring up discord between Druze and Bedouin tribes, continuing to pressure social and spiritual notables to win their allegiance, and attempting to manufacture alternative Druze leadership.
The effort to create new Druze leaders loyal to the Transitional Administration involved several local and regional channels, coordinated with a prominent Lebanese Druze figure, and focused particularly on Layth al-Balaous. This opened doors for him to meet with Western diplomats and politicians, as well as Arab media outlets.
In June 2025, a delegation of Druze politicians from Suwayda visited the transitional president in Damascus. According to one attendee, interviewed by the author, the meeting included uncomfortable moments in which al-Sharaa issued veiled threats of an imminent military operation if Suwayda did not submit to the “state.”
The delegation had previously reached out to the same notables who had taken part in the “No to Unilateral Decision-Making in Sweida” initiative, securing their initial agreement. But these notables later declined to attend the meeting for various reasons. Since the delegation was not united in purpose, some participants later withdrew from any rapprochement with the authority, after what one source described as “realizing its lack of seriousness in building a genuine political and national consensus, and its focus instead on the logic of domination through force and subjugation of local communities by violence.”
According to exclusive testimonies obtained by the author, at least one meeting was held in Damascus in the days immediately preceding the July military campaign. It was attended on the Transitional Administration side by the Minister of Interior, alongside a handful of politicians from Suwayda. One source, interviewed before the assault on Suwayda, confirmed that they had facilitated meetings between political currents from Suwayda and officials from the Transitional Administration, in what he described as an effort to “spare bloodshed.”
Multiple converging sources told the author that during the meeting, broad outlines were presented for an imminent military–security operation in Suwayda, along with assurances that it would be low in violence and aimed at restoring “public security” in the governorate and reasserting the “state’s” role. This same message was later repeated in the official media of the new administration. The presentation also appears to have touched on the formation of a new “political” reference authority for the governorate, potentially including some of the politicians present at the meeting.
It seems, however, that not all participants left with a positive impression of what they heard, amid fears that events could spiral out of control. The politicians in attendance represented a current with little presence or influence, socially or politically, in Suwayda due to their idealistic positions on keeping all arms exclusively in the hands of the “state” and their inability to grasp the new authority’s ideological background in Damascus. Consequently, the influence of this group was close to zero; their presence was largely for media purposes, exploited by the Transitional Administration to showcase the existence of a pro-government political current in Suwayda.
From overlapping testimonies, it appears that general ideas about the imminent military operation were also conveyed to the same notables, spiritual leaders, and community elders previously contacted by government and security channels during the “No to Unilateral Decision-Making in Suwayda” initiative. These communications came both through official channels and via certain politicians who had visited Damascus just days before. Considerable ambiguity surrounds the degree of transparency with which the concept of the operation was presented to these notables.
A source close to one notable confirmed that official assurances had been categorical in stating that there would be no acts of violence—provided that the areas represented by those notables surrendered their weapons to the attacking forces without resistance.
The Military Plan
Regardless of the meeting and the ideas presented therein, the operation to storm Suwayda, according to sources familiar with the plan and close to the Transitional Administration, consisted of several components. These included allowing continuous provocations along the Damascus–Suwayda road via a General Security checkpoint staffed by members of the Bedouin tribes of al-Lajat, located in the al-Mutalla area of rural Damascus, with the aim of triggering a local conflict between the Druze and the Bedouin tribes of the governorate (a type of tension previously known to the area). This would then allow “government forces” to intervene under the pretext of “resolving the conflict” between the two sides and impose General Security control over the governorate—a scenario that unfolded between July 13–16.
In the event the assault failed due to possible Israeli intervention, a contingency plan was in place whereby armed tribal elements would lead an attack against the Druze. This, in fact, is what occurred between July 16–20.
According to private sources, the operation involved the use of violence to force military and political blocs opposed to the “new administration’s” control into surrender, in parallel with the issuance of a statement by notables previously approached and courted in earlier stages. The statement would acknowledge the “state’s” authority, agree to hand over weapons, and dismantle local factions. Any party refusing such a declaration would be treated as an outlaw militia outside the “state,” to be fought, its areas overrun, and destroyed. This was reflected in the terminology used by official media—labels such as “outlaw gangs” and “al-Hijri militias”—in an attempt to depict two different images of Suwayda: one armed faction willing to rally under the “state” and surrender weapons, and another “outlaw,” “separatist” faction accused of “treason.”
In contrast, the Transitional Administration offered no substantive political proposal for the Druze after the operation, apart from promises of marginal appointments for some of its loyalist politicians to local or Damascus-based government posts of little consequence.
The military operation entailed coordination with two armed Druze groups—Layth al-Balaous’s group from the town of al-Mazraa in the west, and Adnan Abu al-Ezz’s group from the town of Hazm in the north of the governorate—as well as a security group led by Suleiman Abdul Baqi in the city of Suwayda. In return, promises were made of administrative and military positions.
Layth al-Balaous’s Roles
Layth al-Balaous represents a reversal from the path charted by his father, Sheikh Wahid al-Balaous, the founder of the Men of Dignity movement, who was assassinated by the Assad regime in 2015. Layth’s personal conduct and attempts to impose his own leadership led the Men of Dignity to expel him in 2016.
In 2018, he established a small armed group known as the “Forces of Sheikh al-Karama,” which quickly became implicated in kidnappings for ransom and other accusations. The group’s strength fluctuated with events and the support it received. At the time of the popular uprising against Raji Falhout’s gang in 2022, al-Balaous’s group numbered only a few dozen members, yet carried out summary executions of unarmed Falhout prisoners in Suwayda’s “Gallows Square” without trial and without coordination with other factions.
Al-Balaous’s ties to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham predate the fall of the Assad regime. Multiple corroborating testimonies obtained by the researcher indicate that the relationship dates back to mid-2024 through HTS security operatives, most notably Abu al-Baraa, responsible for the Druze file. During the July 2025 operation, al-Balaous’s armed group comprised no more than 17 Druze fighters from al-Mazraa, with the remainder drawn from the town’s Bedouin tribes. His role was pivotal, centering on assuring al-Mazraa’s residents that they would come to no harm if they did not resist the entry of the Transitional Administration forces.
The attacking forces’ plan for storming Suwayda relied on entering from eastern rural Daraa to the village of al-Dour, then moving to al-Mazraa west of Suwayda city, which would serve as a main staging point. Indeed, much of the town’s population believed al-Balaous’s assurances, and on the night of July 13–14, the attacking forces faced no real armed resistance, only a few isolated attempts at the town’s outskirts. Nevertheless, residents were subjected to house-to-house killings, summary executions, looting, and arson, triggering a large-scale displacement.
Al-Balaous’s role included enabling the attacking convoys to enter al-Mazraa via agricultural roads, bypassing checkpoints of other Druze factions and thereby preventing early alerts to the rest of the governorate’s factions. He also facilitated the transfer of these forces through secondary roads to the village of Walgha, the last settlement before reaching Sweida city. According to a private testimony from someone monitoring radio communications, heated verbal altercations broke out between the commander of a defending Druze group and al-Balaous himself, with the commander accusing al-Balaous’s fighters of firing directly at them and urging him to stop aiding the attacking forces.
The operation’s commander, Ahmad Dalati, the security official in charge of Suwayyda for the Transitional Administration, arrived at al-Balaous’s home in al-Mazraa, from where he made calls to Druze leaders, notables, and local armed faction commanders, as shown in a video recording leaked by the Transitional Administration.
Al-Balaous was not the only one in al-Mazraa to deal with the Transitional Administration, though he was the one with the largest military faction. Another was Basem al-Hamoud, leader of another Druze gang in the town. Al-Hamoud is a known figure in Suwayda’s organized crime circles and had served as the military arm of a prominent social notable in western rural Suwayda. According to a private testimony from one of his associates, al-Hamoud had declared his conversion to Islam shortly after the fall of the regime, and most members of his group were from al-Mazraa’s Bedouin tribes.
Beyond the infiltration and breach facilitated by al-Balaous, some local notables in western rural Suwayda surrendered their areas without a fight—particularly the town of al-Majdal and its surroundings, the town of Ara and its surroundings, and the village of Sahwat al-Balata.
According to private testimonies obtained by the author, these notables received assurances, directly from the Transitional Administration’s military command or via intermediaries, that surrendering weapons and avoiding confrontation with the invading forces would guarantee the safety of residents.
In reality, the opposite occurred. The entire area was subjected to house-to-house killings, destruction of property, and arson, triggering a mass displacement toward Suwayda city and the southern countryside. These notables, most of whom had participated in the “No to Unilateral Decision-Making in Suwayda” movement, were likely deceived; their homes and properties were destroyed, and some were personally subjected to humiliation and beatings.
Adnan Abu al-Ezz and Suleiman Abdul Baqi
The second armed group, led by Adnan Abu al-Ezz, was less significant than al-Balaous’s group and received little media attention. Nevertheless, it played an active role in facilitating the entry of “Transitional Administration” forces into northern rural Sweida and the villages of Hazm, al-Soura al-Kabira, Radimat al-Loua, and others.
The security group, by contrast, was under the command of Suleiman Abdul Baqi and worked to establish security cells in various areas, particularly within Sweida city. During the Syrian war, Abdul Baqi had formed an armed group called the “Free Men of the Mountain Gathering,” which at its peak numbered only a few dozen fighters. It frequently intervened in kidnapping-for-ransom cases as an intermediary. Kidnapping gangs often engaged such intermediaries to negotiate the release of hostages through non-violent means, with the intermediary receiving a substantial share of the ransom.
Since the fall of the Assad regime, Abdul Baqi had appeared alongside Ahmad al-Sharaa multiple times and was promoted in official media as a Druze leader. Private sources confirmed that Abdul Baqi’s relationship with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham dated back to late 2023, and that he coordinated with HTS security official Abu al-Baraa. In the week preceding the Suwayda assault, Abdul Baqi reportedly attended a series of meetings with security and military officials of the Transitional Administration,”during which he was briefed on the operation’s progress and tasks were assigned to his associated security cells.
The Beginning of the “Conflict Resolution”
A local reporter from an area near the Maqous neighborhood testified that he recognized members of one of Abdul Baqi’s cells firing without prior clashes on July 14 at the Maqous neighborhood, controlled by the al-Baddah family, part of the “Southern Tribes Gathering,” supported and funded by tribal sheikh Rakan al-Khudeir, a close ally of the Transitional Administration.
The “Southern Tribes Gathering” immediately responded with indiscriminate machine-gun fire at various locations in the city. The Maqous area quickly turned into a battlefield as Druze reinforcements—unaware of the broader plan—rushed in and began fighting the “Southern Tribes Gathering” in the neighborhood. The clashes claimed lives on both sides, including civilian casualties, and saw homes burned in fighting that moved from alley to alley.
The armed clashes in Maqous continued for two days, providing the “Transitional Administration” forces with a pretext to enter the neighborhood under the guise of “resolving the conflict” between the two sides. On the morning of July 15, Transitional Administration forces arrived in the neighborhood. The Interior Ministry’s spokesperson, Nour al-Din al-Baba, appeared standing atop a van, addressing assembled tribesmen and encouraging them to “impose security” in Suwayda.
At this stage, reports of violations committed against Bedouins began to increase, while Damascus media outlets framed the conflict as a Druze–Bedouin dispute, portraying “government forces” merely as a neutral party intervening to resolve it.
Private sources indicated that a security cell guided the invading forces to specific homes in the al-Mashfa sector—Abdul Baqi’s own neighborhood—to raid, loot, and commit violations in. Most of the targeted homes reportedly belonged to wealthy individuals or opponents of the Transitional Administration. On July 15–16, the invading forces took control of the National Hospital after it had been shelled, killed several patients, detained the medical staff, stationed a tank at its entrance, and deployed snipers on its roof.
Pressure on Local Authorities and Factions
The sudden Transitional Administration offensive left many local Suwayda factions—both large and small—confused and fragmented, unable to take the initiative. Their first defensive lines collapsed amid the flanking maneuvers facilitated by Layth al-Balaous and Adnan Abu al-Ezz, as well as the covert work of security cells.
As a result, many factions fought in an uncoordinated manner, relying solely on their fighters in the areas under attack. For example, the Birq of Taara village, affiliated with the “Men of Dignity” movement, fought to the end without coordination with the movement’s operations room, which had lost its ability to communicate and mobilize. Similar patterns emerged across most factions, with the fighting becoming a form of community and civilian defense involving all able-bodied individuals.
Another factor exacerbating the factions’ disarray was the manipulation and pressure applied by Ahmad Dalati, commander of the “Transitional Administration” military operation. In a phone call from Layth al-Balaous’s home on the night of July 14—captured in a leaked video—Dalati spoke with Shakib Azzam, commander of the “Mountain Brigade.”
In the conversation, Dalati claimed that Abu al-Baraa had called someone from Suwayda before the operation began, requesting a meeting in Izraa in Daraa. The Druze side allegedly requested the meeting be moved to Layth al-Balaous’s home in al-Mazraa. Azzam told Dalati he was ready to meet, as was a representative of the Men of Dignity movement, provided the fighting stopped first. Dalati urged him to attend, asserting that his forces “only fire at those who fire upon them” and that “the state is merely entering its rightful place.” He added that he had personally spoken to many notables and religious leaders, naming several. The leak of this conversation by the Transitional Administration may have been deliberate, to portray those named as collaborators in the eyes of the public and as cowards from a military standpoint.
As a result of such contacts—and in the interest of “avoiding bloodshed” and reaching a “political solution”, it appears some Druze factions opted against full-scale confrontation, limiting themselves to returning fire when attacked. Similarly, certain social and religious authorities, having previously engaged with the Transitional Administration, preferred to pursue a “peaceful solution” despite its steep political and military cost.
Heavy military pressure, widespread infiltration, and the fall of northern and western rural areas into Transitional Administration hands within hours coincided with international and regional pressure on Sheikh al-Hijri, who on the morning of July 15 issued a written statement accepting the entry of General Security into the governorate.
The meeting mentioned in the leaked Dalati–Azzam conversation did not actually take place until midday July 15, at the Ain al-Zaman shrine—the Druze religious headquarters in Suwayda city. Dalati met with representatives of local factions, including the leader of the Men of Dignity movement, social notables, Sheikh al-Aql Yusuf Jarbou, and a representative of Sheikh al-Aql Hammoud al-Hanawi, to “coordinate and organize the entry of the ministries’ forces into the governorate.” The meeting occurred amid the sound of armored vehicles and continuous gunfire outside, and concluded with a statement accepting the entry of General Security into Suwayda.
All these events on July 15 unfolded under a complete electronic blackout imposed by the “Transitional Administration,” including a total cut of electricity and both landline and mobile communications in Suwayda governorate, lasting from July 14–17.
As reports of unprecedented violence and roaming massacres in Sweida city and its western countryside emerged, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri released a recorded address rejecting the previous statement—calling it “submission and humiliation”—and urged local resistance and general mobilization. Accounts of the invasion and ongoing massacres spurred residents to organize grassroots armed resistance, joined by faction members on an individual basis.
At that point, the Transitional Administration’s plan to force the spiritual and community leadership into submission had failed. Armed community resistance against the invading forces began, and some local factions—partially or fully—regained their footing, launching counterattacks alongside the popular resistance. Inevitably, divisions emerged within faction structures, with many large groups beginning to coordinate independently of their official leadership under a joint operations room that included the National Guard, most of the Men of Dignity movement, and other local community factions, according to informed sources.
Structure and Tools of Infiltration
The events of the Suwayda assault appear to have been the outcome of a methodical, multi-layered process carried out across interlinked levels. The first was building bridges with various political and social groups to push them—under military pressure—into accepting an unjust agreement in the name of “avoiding bloodshed” and preserving “civil peace.”
The second was establishing Druze military and security arms that had received early training and funding, and that participated in mapping ground movements by opening corridors, directing convoys, and sparking localized conflicts, according to private testimonies obtained by the author.
The third was crafting an official narrative portraying the assault as an intervention to end an internal dispute and to reaffirm “state” authority, combined with a total blackout to suppress the circulation of opposing accounts.
These three elements moved in coordinated timing, enabling the transition from planning to execution within a matter of hours. This demonstrated that the operation did not rely on military superiority alone but on a complex network of alliances, intelligence coordination, and management of the broader scene to achieve a military victory and translate it into political control by the “state.” Yet the scale of atrocities upended the equation, as local resistance erupted, some factions overcame their initial shock, and Sheikh al-Hijri rejected the agreement imposed by force.
