the local internal security chief said. Four people were shot dead and a fifth seriously wounded in the incident on Saturday, in the village of al-Matana, said Hossam al-Tahan, the state news agency SANA reported.  The initial investigation, carried out with the help of one of the survivors of the attack, indicated that one suspect was a member of the local Internal Security Directorate, he said. "The officer was immediately detained and referred for investigation," he added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that four people were killed and a fifth wounded by gunfire from unknown assailants as they were harvesting olives.

The authorities had cleared the olive pickers to be in the northern part of the province controlled by government forces, it added. Sweida province is the stronghold of the Druze minority in the south of the country. Violence erupted there briefly in July last year, with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin that rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces and tribal fighters from other parts of Syria.

Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the London-based Observatory have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze. Although a ceasefire was reached later that month, the situation remained tense and access to Sweida difficult. Residents accuse the government of having imposed a blockade on the province, from which tens of thousands of inhabitants have fled -- a charge Damascus denies. Several aid convoys have entered since then. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 185,000 people remain uprooted. (Bssnews)