The main representative of Lebanon’s Druze community meets with the Syrian jihadist leader

MADRID Dec. 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The great leader of the Druze community in Lebanon, the deputy and former president of the Social Progressive Party, Walid Jumblatt, held a meeting this Sunday with the Syrian jihadist leader, Abu Mohamed al Golani, to discuss the situation of this minority in the country. at the beginning of a new era without former Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

The veteran Jumblatt, 75 years old, is the most prominent Lebanese politician who has visited Syria since the fall of the Al Assad dynasty, whom the Druze politician has accused of the murder of his father, the historic Kamal Youmblat, who was shot to death. in 1977, supposedly by order of the former president’s uncle, Rifaat al Assad.

The Druze are a prominent part of the variety of actors who are currently fighting to gain a foothold in the new Syria that has begun without the deposed president Bashar al Assad.

Druze fighters, visceral enemies of Al Assad, joined from the south to the lightning offensive led last month by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham led by Al Golani. In fact, they arrived even before the fundamentalists to the country’s capital, Damascus, in the hours before the city fell.

The Druze are very concerned that Israel has taken the opportunity to enter the demilitarized zone of the Golan Heights, very close to their communities, for the first time since the end of the Arab-Israeli war in 1973 under the argument of a necessary measure of border security.

In his meeting, broadcast by Syria TV, the jihadist leader, who seeks to ingratiate himself with the international community, promised an end to Syrian intervention in Lebanon’s internal affairs and a dialogue process to protect the country’s Druze community. .

“Syria has been a source of concern and disturbance in Lebanon. The previous regime, together with the Iranian militias, ended up dispersing the Druze community in Syria,” Jumblatt explained during the meeting.

“We hope that relations between Lebanon and Syria return to their normal course through diplomatic relations and that all criminals against the Lebanese are held accountable for their actions,” he added before calling for the establishment of “fair courts for those who have committed crimes.” crimes against the Syrian people and so that the regime’s prisons are nothing more than museums of history.