Kfeir al-Zayt

Kfeir Alzeit (also spelled Kufayr al-Zayt) (Arabic: كفير الزيت) is a village in southern Syria, administratively part of the Rif Dimashq Governorate, located northwest of Damascus in the Wadi Barada.

[1] The first anti-government protest in Wadi Barada was in Kfeir Alzeit and took place on April 1, 2011 when people left the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque after Friday prayers.

A group of about 30 men gathered outside and started chanting slogans: “Allahu akbar,” “Freedom!” and “Daraa, we are with you until death!”.

A week later after morning prayer, a group from Kfeir Alzeit met with an official delegation headed by Issam Zahreddine, a brigadier general in the Syrian Republican Guard who went on to lead the assault on the district of Baba Amr in Homs in February 2012.

The first thing the villagers demanded was to have the river restored and thereby get permanent access to clean drinking water.