BEIRUT—Al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria has killed at least 20 Druze after a confrontation in the northwestern Idlib province, where the jihadi group has forced hundreds of members of the minority sect to covert to Sunni Islam, an activist group and a Syrian opposition faction said Thursday.
The killings occurred Wednesday in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in the Jabal al-Summaq region, where Nusra Front fighters have dug up historic graves and destroyed shrines in recent months.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the shooting occurred after the Nusra Front tried to confiscate the home of a Druze government official in the village. It said fighters shot one villager dead, prompting another villager to grab one of the fighters’ rifles and kill a member of the jihadi group.
