[Al Ahram] Lebanon's Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has sided with the rebel Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist group which Washington lists as a "terrorist organisation', in the Syrian conflict."I support Al-Nusra Front against the Syrian regime," Jumblatt said in an interview with Al-Akhbar newspaper published on Wednesday.
"The Syrian people has the right to side with the devil -- except with Israel -- against the regime," said Jumblatt, a fierce foe of President Bashar al-Assad although he was once an ally of his late predecessor and father, Hafez al-Assad.
"I am acting to protect the (Syrian) Druze. The Alawites (Assad's community) will go back to their mountain, but the Druze live in a sea of Sunnis," said Jumblatt.
While most anti-Assad rebels -- like the majority of Syria's population -- are Sunni, the country's minorities have mostly stayed on the sidelines of the two-year-old conflict in Lebanon's neighbour.
Among them are Syria's Druze, many of who live in the south, next to the majority Sunni area of Hauran.