Poor infrastructure, regional conflict and sporadic Israeli airstrikes are holding back more airlines from returning to Syria, industry officials told Reuters, hampering efforts to rebuild a shattered economy after 14 years of civil war.

Syria 's defense minister announced a ceasefire shortly after government forces entered a key city in southern Sweida province on Tuesday, a day after sectarian clashes killed dozens there. Neighboring Israel again launched strikes on Syrian military forces,

Druse militiamen have been fighting with Bedouins in the Sweida Province, and Syrian government forces and the Israeli military are getting involved.

Washington and Jerusalem have kept a watchful eye on Damascus ever since the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime by Sunni Muslim rebels in December. Of greatest concern has been the level of solidarity the new Syrian government maintains with ISIS — the terrorist organization that Syrian interim president

The Druze are a small, secretive ethnoreligious community that emerged in the early 11th century in Egypt. They broke away from mainstream Islam during the rule of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah and developed a distinct monotheistic belief system.

The Syrian Catholic archbishop of Homs in Syria, Jacques Mourad, has issued an urgent appeal for the future of the Christian presence in that country.

This matters because if ISIS is on the rise in parts of Syria, then it will require coordination between Damascus and the SDF. The SDF controls a third of Syria.

Deadly clashes threaten Syria’s fragile peace - Fighting erupted in the Druze-majority Sweida city in southern Syria in recent days