Charles Lister writes:

In the early hours of Sunday, May 3, Jordanian F-16 fighter jets crossed into Syrian airspace and launched strikes on at least six locations in the southern province of Sweida. In a statement issued hours later, Jordan’s military said that “Operation Jordanian Deterrence” had targeted “factories, facilities and warehouses used by trafficking groups as launch points for smuggling operations into Jordan.”

This was the fifth time Jordan had launched military strikes in Sweida since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, and the third round since the area fell under the control of Israel-backed Druze militia groups, known as the “National Guard,” in July 2025. That dynamic — in which most of Sweida falls solidly outside the control of Syria’s transitional government — developed in the wake of a week of brutal hostilities and the death of as many as 1,700 people last July, as localized conflict between Druze militias and Bedouin tribal members triggered a government intervention and a flurry of vicious reprisals that then drew the intervention of Israel’s air force. A U.N. investigation into the fighting found government forces, Bedouin tribal members and Druze militias all implicated in war crimes, with the government most complicit.

Israel’s interest in Druze-majority Sweida is driven in part by its own domestic Druze dynamic. Israel’s Druze minority plays an influential role within the military, inculcating a strong domestic sentiment of solidarity for Druze brethren beyond the country’s borders. But more importantly, Israel’s government has embraced a hostile posture toward Syria’s new government since day one. In the first days after Assad’s fall, Israel conducted as many as 15 airdrops of weapons and ammunition to Druze militias opposed to Damascus. Since the fall of Assad’s regime, Israel has also occupied approximately 80 square miles of Syrian territory, launched nearly 1,100 air and artillery strikes on Syrian targets, and conducted over 1,000 ground incursions even deeper into Syria. In such an environment, the prospect of a Druze-controlled Sweida offers a valuable buffer, deterrent and threat to Damascus, and a constant source of political and sectarian tension that helps to achieve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s objective: to keep Syria weak and divided. [Continue reading…]