About 500 people killed in clashes, according to UK war monitor; AFP photographer counts 15 bodies strewn in city center amid looted shops and burned cars and houses

Syrian government forces have started withdrawing from the southern province of Sweida following days of vicious clashes with militias from the Druze minority.

Shops were looted, homes burned and bodies littered the streets of the city. Read more at straitstimes.com. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Government forces and allied militias began withdrawing from the mostly Druze city of Sweida in southern Syria on Thursday, following Israeli strikes to defend the sect and US demands on Damascus to pull out.

(Reuters) -Syria's Druze have reached a ceasefire agreement with the Syrian government in Sweida that will take immediate effect, Druze religious leader Sheikh Yousef Jarbou said in a video broadcast by state media on Wednesday.

Dozens of Druze crowded the Israeli-controlled side of the armistice line in the occupied Golan Heights on Thursday, hoping to catch a glimpse of relatives on the Syrian-held side who might try to cross the barbed-wire frontier.

Hundreds of Druze from Israel pushed across the border in solidarity with their Syrian cousins they feared were under attack. Many then met relatives never seen before.

Syrian troops pulled out of the Druze heartland province of Sweida Thursday on orders from the Islamist-led government, leaving bodies strewn on the street, AFP journalists reported from the provincia

The fighting had threatened to unravel Syria's post-war political transition and brought further military intervention by neighbouring Israel. View on euronews

SANA says women and children among those killed by armed groups following withdrawal of government forces in Sweida