Syrian security forces are deploying in the restive province of Suwayda after days of communal fighting in which hundreds of people have been killed, the country’s interior ministry says.

Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, a monitor and AFP correspondents reported, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more

Gunfire is reported to have stopped in southern Syria after days of sectarian violence which has led to more than a thousand deaths. Most of the clashes took place in Sweida City between Bedouin and Sunni tribal fighters on one side and Druze militias on the other.

A tense calm prevails in the city of Al-Suwayda, in southern Syria, on Sunday, with sporadic clashes outside the city despite the ceasefire in effect, a week after sectarian violence between Bedouin and Druze groups.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, said the clashes started after members of a Bedouin tribe in Sweida province set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a Druze man, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings between the tribes and Druze armed groups.

At least 30 people were killed and around 100 were injured in sectarian violence that exploded in Syria's southernmost As-Suwayda Governorate, the Middle Eastern country's Ministry of Interior said Monday morning.

Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, a monitor and AFP correspondents reported, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more than 1,

Religious minorities in Syria face persecution under the new Islamist government, highlighting the critical importance of religious liberty as the foundation for all other freedoms

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it looked like a "misunderstanding" after Israel struck Syria's defense ministry.