BEIRUT (AP) — A United Nations inquiry said Friday that there is “no indication” Syria has investigated violations its forces committed during sectarian clashes last summer in which at least 1,700 people were killed, the vast majority from the Druze religious minority.

In a scathing 85-page report, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic urged Syria’s government to investigate the leadership of its security forces that allowed or organized sectarian attacks against the Druze community.

The report estimates that about 200,000 people were displaced in the violence in Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze community. Among the dead were almost 200 women and children.

In mid-July, armed groups affiliated with Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri clashed with local Bedouin clans, spurring intervention by government forces who effectively sided with the Bedouins.

Targeted sectarian attacks, first against the religious minority group and later the Bedouin community, and a series of abductions, further soured ties.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has vowed to investigate the events and hold perpetrators on all sides to account, including government forces.

UN investigators spent weeks in Syria, interviewing more than 400 survivors, officials and alleged perpetrators. They visited affected areas, including those under government control and those under the de facto rule of an Israeli-backed umbrella group of local armed Druze factions.

Damascus needs to address whether “certain practices are tolerated” within elements of its security agencies, the report said, referring to the violence. It called for identifying members of the leadership who allowed it to happen and removing them.

Armed tribal........

© The Times of Israel