The trainer paced the grounds of a mountain enclave in southwestern Syria, shouting at dozens of new recruits as they drilled sprints between barricades made from old car tires.
“You have to practice as if it’s real,” screamed the instructor, Fadi Azam. “Want me to start shooting at you instead to make it real?” he said, lifting his rifle and firing a few rounds away from the group, the paw-paw-paw of gunfire echoing across the valley on a brisk morning recently.
“You are lions, lions!” Mr. Azam yelled at the recruits, some of the tens of thousands of fighters from Syria’s Druse religious minority whose powerful militias control the rugged province of Sweida, southwest of the capital, Damascus. Sweida is the heartland of the Druse — a strategically important region bordering Jordan and near Israel — and these fighters stand to play a small but essential role in Syria’s future.
As the Islamist rebels who ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December set up a new government, they are seeking to fold disparate militias including this one, which sprung up during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, into a single national force. A unified military is crucial to securing control over the entire country and establishing stability, but that goal has proved elusive.
Since January, several of the strongest Druse militias had been in talks with the government about their conditions for joining the new army. They were skeptical over the interim president’s pledges to protect the rights of Syria’s many religious and ethnic minorities.
Those talks stalled last month after an outburst of violence against another religious minority, heightening the concerns of the Druse. The violence began with an attack by remnants of the old regime on the new government’s security forces in a region dominated by the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Mr. al-Assad’s family are Alawites, and during the family’s five decades ruling Syria, they often prioritized members of the sect in security and military jobs.
The government responded by mobilizing its security forces, which other armed groups and armed civilians joined, according to witnesses and rights groups. These fighters — some nominally under the government’s control and others outside it — killed hundreds of Alawite civilians in what the rights groups said were sectarian-driven attacks.
Druse militia leaders have also accused the interim president, Ahmed al-Shara, of monopolizing power. Mr. al-Shara and many in his cohort were part of an Islamist rebel group, dominated by members of Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority, that was once linked to Al Qaeda. They showed little willingness initially to cede power in their new government to minorities.
However, when Mr. al-Shara announced a caretaker government late Saturday, his choices acknowledged to some extent the pressure to form an inclusive administration representing Syria’s many diverse ethnic and religious groups. He appointed a Kurdish minister of education, a Christian woman minister and a Druse minister, among others. Still, the crucial ministries of defense, foreign affairs and interior will be run by the president’s close allies.
Another powerful militia, a Kurdish-led force that governs much of northeastern Syria and is backed by the United States, has agreed to a preliminary deal to join the national army but has not yet integrated, expressing concerns similar to those of the Druse.
Unless he can persuade the Druse militias and other armed groups to integrate into a national army, Mr. al-Shara will face a difficult choice. He must either agree to cede some authority and establish a somewhat decentralized government or risk ruling only part of the country — much as Mr. al-Assad did during the civil war.
Mr. al-Shara “is in a political deadlock with the Druse and the Kurds and doesn’t have much leverage,” said Mohammad al-Abdallah, a Syrian political analyst.
In the meantime, the Druse militias have bolstered their ranks, exerting authority across the region to fill the security void left by the collapse of the Assad regime. The recruits training recently in Sweida were part of the Mountain Brigade, one of several Druse militias that emerged during the civil war. The brigade’s ranks have swelled from 2,000 fighters to more than 7,000, their leaders say, amid the uncertainty of this transition of power.
“We want to defend our people, defend our homeland,” said Rakan Kahool, 28, who signed up with the militia in January. “The people of Sweida should protect Sweida.”
New recruits like Mr. Kahool and veteran fighters have been acting as the de facto police and security forces for Sweida Province, staffing checkpoints and patrolling the border with Jordan.
The Mountain Brigade’s commander, Sheqib Azam, said in an interview that the Druse militia leaders wanted to give the interim government a chance to prove themselves. “If the new government works in the right way, we will join them,” Mr. Azam said. “And if not, we will fight them.”
He has taken part in the discussions with Syria’s new authorities over joining the national army that reached an impasse in recent weeks.
“We want to be a part of the state, to have a say in political decisions,” he said. But he added, “It’s too early to give up our weapons.”
Should the Druse militias strike a deal with the new government, their fighters will be key to maintaining security in the southwest in the face of threats from the Islamic State, armed remnants of Assad regime and criminal groups, as well as Israeli incursions along the southern border. Any disruptions could plunge Syria into another cycle of violence and factionalism.
Israel’s actions in response to the collapse of the Assad regime is injecting even more uncertainty into the political landscape of southwestern Syria. Israel wants to ensure that no hostile forces entrench themselves in the parts of Syria near its borders, where they could easily launch attacks against northern Israel as Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group, did for years from neighboring Lebanon.
And the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that Israel will not tolerate the presence of Mr. al-Shara’s Turkish-backed Sunni Muslim forces south of Damascus. Israeli officials have referred to those forces as extremists.
Since the Assad regime fell, Israel has struck several hundred targets in Syria, knocking out weapons depots and other military assets from the former regime to keep them from falling into the hands anyone hostile to Israel, according to Israeli officials.
Israeli officials have also warned the Syrian authorities that they would intervene militarily to protect the Druse from any government crackdown, an overture that reflects the strong relationship that the Israeli state has with its own Druse minority. The Druse, who practice a religion that is an offshoot of Shiite Islam, can also be found in Lebanon and Jordan.
The major Syrian Druse militias have rejected the offer.
Although they have not yet agreed to join the national military, Druse militia and religious leaders have established informal arrangements with the new authorities that allow them to receive government aid while still maintaining their military control over Sweida.
In January, Mr. Azam said, he agreed to have an official from Mr. al-Shara’s former rebel group serve as a temporary provincial governor of Sweida, on the condition that government forces not deploy to Sweida.
In the weeks since the arrival of the interim governor, Mustafa Yasin Baquer, hundreds of people have crowded into his office each day to request support. The electricity works for only an hour a day, residents say. The water supply is erratic. Some want land stolen by the Assad government returned to them. Others, who once relied on subsidized bread under the old rulers, begged for similar aid.
“The infrastructure is completely destroyed,” Mr. Baquer said in an interview. While the negotiations with the Druse militias continue, the transitional government must “step in and try to stabilize the situation,” he added.
Many residents in Sweida share that sentiment.
One recent afternoon, Janat Abu al-Fadl, 55, meandered along the narrow cobblestone roads of Sweida’s market with her daughter. While both were uncertain about Syria’s new authorities, Ms. al-Fadl said she was hopeful about the future of Syria for the first time in decades.
“It will take time, and there will be a difficult period at first of course, but eventually I think things will improve,” she said. “Before the regime fell, we had no hope,” she added. “Now, at least, we have something.”
