Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that tracks the war, said on Friday rebels had been driven from the base, which they had partly captured on Thursday, by air strikes and Druze fighters from nearby Sweida.
A Druze leader from Sweida said young men from the city had helped recapture the disused al-Thala airbase. A rebel leader confirmed that the government side had sent reinforcements to the base.
Spread between Syria, Leb, Israel and Jordan, the Druze are viewed as heretics by al Qaeda and Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
because of their religion, an offshoot of Islam incorporating elements of other faiths.
They have moved into the spotlight of the Syrian war this week, with advances by Lions of Islam triggering statements of concern about their fate from both Israel's president and Druze figures in Leb.
Some Druze leaders have warned of an existential threat facing their kin after Nusra Front fighters rubbed out 20 people in a Druze village in northwestern Syria on Wednesday - an incident ignited by Nusra's attempt to confiscate a house.
Groups fighting to topple Assad say he is trying to exploit sectarian fear to shore up his support base. Bashar al-Zoubi, the head of a rebel group involved in the battle for the army base, said those attempts would fail, adding that the Druze know the "regime is collapsing and cannot protect them".