At least 30 dead, 100 injured, in clashes between armed groups in southern city of Sweida, say Syrian officials

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said that its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict and stop the clashes.

The fighting represents the latest in a series of sectarian clashes between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes, according to the Reuters news agency.

It reported that violence erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports the fighting is centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweid and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city. It adds that the Syrian Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

The violence marked the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al-Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

Those concerns intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended last December with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.