Ein-Issa – North-Press Agency
Romat Muhammad
In a new development of its kind, the armed factions "Settlement factions" in Daraa governorate have arrested a non-commissioned officer in the military security of Daraa, on the morning of Sunday, the first of December, in an escalation step by these factions, where they had set up checkpoints on the road of Yadouda – Daraa, they started to search vehicles, aiming at arresting any Syrian government member, to force them to release the detainees.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Daraa governorate has been witnessing popular movements against the Syrian government and the Iranian presence for days, the last of which was in the town of Heit, in the western countryside of Daraa. The funeral of two brothers who were killed last Thursday, turned into a large demonstration in Daraa al-Balad, during which demonstrators chanted against the Syrian government, accusing the government security services of killing the two young men, who were former members of the armed opposition groups, who have made a settlement with the government.
General settlement
This escalation marks a year after the settlement process in the governorate of Daraa, under the agreement between the Syrian government and the armed opposition groups, which was supervised by Russia, under which the latter handed over its heavy and medium weapons to the Syrian government, following a military campaign launched by Syrian government forces and the Russian forces on southern Syria, In mid-June 2018. However, most of the files that have been agreed upon between the two parties are still pending and have not been implemented, most notably the amnesty over the wanted people in Daraa, provide a deadline for those wanted for military service with the requirement that their military service would be within the governorate, the removal of the Iranian groups from the region, and settling the file of detainees.
Daraa in the war years
Events in the city began with the arrest of schoolchildren who had written anti-government slogans on school walls, by the government security forces, in March 2011 who tortured them, triggering popular demonstrations against the government, as it escalated dramatically when the Syrian government security forces started killing the demonstrators. Thereafter, protests spread to other Syrian cities such as Homs, Damascus and Baniyas. After the government forces stepped up their repression of these popular demonstrations and massacres took place in the city, there were a number of defections within the government forces. In late July 2011, defector officers formed the so-called “Free Syrian Army” to defend civilians against the government forces as they claimed, and that was the beginning of the armed operations against the Syrian government forces in different parts of Syria.
The armed movement in the governorate expanded during the second year of the Syrian civil war, many areas in Daraa governorate fell into the hands of those armed opposition groups. While the fourth year witnessed the connection between the opposition areas in the governorates of Daraa and Quneitra. The Syrian government forces and their allies launched a military operation called “Operation Basalt” on June 18, 2018, against the Islamic State group (ISIS) and the armed opposition groups in Daraa and Quneitra, which ended in the 31st of June the same year with the control of the government forces over the city after reconciliation operations with the armed opposition groups that surrendered their heavy and medium weapons and became part of the government security forces.
Coexistence failed
The unique experience of coexistence between the Syrian government forces and the opposition groups, after more than a year, failed while Daraa undergoes, nowadays, bombings, assassinations and arrests. Only two months after the settlement agreement, assassinations returned strongly, killed many people in Daraa, both opponents and loyalists, in what can be described as systematic way of killing.
On the other hand, the arrests carried out by the security services of the government did not stop since the signing of the agreement until now. The actions of government forces, increased the resentment of people of the governorate, and led to the emergence of armed groups that declared themselves later in the name of (Popular Resistance), and launched many attacks on various locations of the Syrian government forces and their security services, causing heavy casualties.
Detainees file
The file of the detainees is the most prominent and complex, and has not been resolved completely so far, despite promises made by senior security officials of the Syrian government.
Some social media accounts mentioned that the failure to release the detainees was the main reason for the return of anti-government demonstrations in many parts of the governorate, the return of graffiti and the distribution of leaflets calling for the overthrowing of the Syrian government.
It is worth mentioning that the security situation in Daraa governorate has recently become very tense, as activists expect that the situation would explode again and turn into confrontations between the government forces and the new opposition groups, citing the ongoing violations by the government security forces on one hand, and not accepting the status of the settlement on the other.