Jumblat Sides with Al-Nusra Front against Assad
Druze leader Walid Jumblat 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," Jumblat 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 Jumblat, a fierce foe of President Bashar 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," the Progressive Socialist Party leader said.
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 neighbor.
Among them are Syria's Druze, many of who live in the south, next to the majority Sunni area of Hauran.
The Alawites, meanwhile, come from the mountains of northwest Syria.
Source: Agence France Presse
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