Seven members of government-loyal forces and seven Druze are reported to have been killed in firefights on the outskirts of Syria's capital Damascus on Tuesday.
The clashes occurred after an audio clip with insults against Islam spread on social media. The man heard on the clip is said to belong to the Druze religious minority group and the clip has outraged some Sunni Muslims.
Will be brought to justice
As the British-based conflict monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) describes it, heavy clashes broke out when Syrian government security forces and militiamen they collaborate with stormed Jaramana, located southeast of Damascus and inhabited by many Druze and Christians.
An agreement has been reached with Druze representatives to bring those responsible for the outbreak of violence to justice, says Rabih Mounzer from a civil coordination group later.
The agreement, which AFP has seen, also includes measures to "put an end to incitement to sectarian and regional division".
Massacres recently
Sectarian violence has been simmering in Syria since dictator Bashar al-Assad was overthrown in a jihadist-led offensive at the end of last year. In March, clashes and massacres occurred in areas inhabited by many Alawites, a Shia minority. Hundreds, possibly over a thousand, people were reported to have been killed.
Forces led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took power in Syria in a lightning-fast offensive from the country's northwest in December. The organization has previously been labeled a terrorist group and still has many extremists in its leadership, although leader Ahmed al-Shara's new government has sought to present itself as a relatively moderate and tolerant Islamist regime.
