As-Suwayda

With the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024, Syria entered a pivotal political turning point, ushering the country into a new phase. Ahmad al-Sharaa assumed the role of interim president, and this transitional period has been defined by intense efforts to restore security and stability, unify the divided armed factions, and address the growing humanitarian needs nationwide. Against this shifting backdrop, the southern governorate of As-Suwayda, home to a Druze majority, emerged as a strategic hot spot of tension. Recent military developments in the region have taken on significant dimensions, potentially impacting the future of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the country's northeast.

As-Suwayda has emerged as a profoundly complex arena amid the sweeping transformations reshaping Syria following the fall of the Assad regime and the formation of a new centralized transitional government. Within this volatile context, calls for self-determination from segments of the local Druze community have gained traction.   There are four critical fault lines worth exploring: the acute internal fragmentation of the Druze polity; the ideological and constitutional dissonance between local autonomy demands and the centralized architecture of the new Syrian state; the near-total economic collapse of the province; and the intensity of regional entanglement that constrains meaningful sovereignty.