IDF strikes group planning attack on Syrian Druze community, sends warning to Syrian government. 'We see great importance in fulfilling our commitment to the Druze community in Israel and to protecting their Syrian brothers.

Israel said it carried out a strike in Syria against "an extremist group" that attacked members of the Druze community, following through on a promise to defend the minority group as deadly sectarian violence spread near Damascus on Wednesday.

Syria's small Druze community largely kept out of the country's long civil war but since president Bashar al-Assad's ouster in December it has found itself confronting the new Islamist-led government amid military intervention by Israel.