At least nine people were killed in a suburbs of the Syrian capital after the clashes broke out between pro-government fighters and local armed men, according to the Syrian observatory based in the United Kingdom for Human Rights.
The fighting in the suburbs of Damascus of Jaramana are the last episode of sectarian violence in Syria since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December.
It was triggered after an audio clip circulated on the social networks of a man attacking the prophet Muhammad of Islam. It was awarded to Marwan Kiwan, a Druze religious, who then denied being involved.
The clip has angry many Sunni Muslims and led to the fighting in predominantly Jaramana.
“I categorically deny that the audio was made by me,” said Kiwan in a video he published online. “I did not say that and the one who did it is a diabolical man who wants to encourage conflicts between the components of the Syrian people.”
The Ministry of the Interior said in a statement that he was investigating the audio clip, adding that his initial probe has shown that the Clerk was not responsible. The ministry urged people to respect the law and not act in a way that undermines security.
A ministry spokesman Mustafa Al-Abdo said that two members of the Syria General Security Service were one of the dead, adding that the security forces were lying down to break the clashes.
The Syrian Human Rights Observatory said six Druze of Jaramana fighters and three “attackers” were also killed.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group which began as an emanation of 11th century Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam.
More than half of about a million druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and officially annexed in 1981.
The worst internal clashes in Syria since the fall of al-Assad took place last month in the country's coastal region and involved members of the minority sect to which the former president belonged.
The clashes between the Loyalists of Assad and the government forces were accompanied by murders of revenge who left more than 1,000 dead, including hundreds of civilians, according to the War Monitor Syrian Network for Human Rights.
The sectarian tension in Syria remains widespread, even if the new leaders of the country are trying to integrate the armed groups fragmented under a single authority.
Some Druze fighters have resisted this, saying that Damascus has not guaranteed their protection against hostile activists, and fears remain among the minority groups to be marginalized by the rebels who overthrew Assad.
Additional sources • AP
