- A suicide bombing attack in a Damascus church Sunday killed 25 people and injured 63 more.
- The Syrian interior ministry linked the bomber to jihadist group Islamic State, though the group has not claimed the attack.
- The attack, condemned by multiple countries, has revived fears of Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities in Syria.
At least 25 people have been killed and another 63 injured in a suicide bomb attack on Sunday at a church in Damascus.
The deadly attack has revived worries that “extremists might exploit Syria’s fragile peace as its six-month-old government tries to keep a lid on bubbling sectarian violence across the country after the brutal Assad regime,” per The Washington Post.
According to BBC, a man entered the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias in the Dweila neighborhood during a Sunday evening service and opened fire before detonating an explosive vest.
The Syrian interior ministry said the bomber was affiliated with the jihadist group Islamic State. The group made no immediate claim on the attack.
BBC reported that one witness, Lawrence Maamari, told journalists that “someone entered from outside carrying a weapon” and began shooting. People in the church “tried to stop him before he blew himself up,” Maamari added.
Initial reports say that the bomb blast occurred at the church’s entrance, killing people inside the building and in the immediate vicinity, per The Washington Post.
It was reported that around 350 people were in the church at the time of the attack.
Photos and video from inside the church showed a heavily damaged altar, religious paintings that fell off the walls, pews covered in broken glass and blood spattered across the walls. According to The Washington Post, eyewitnesses say that some people in the church were praying and others were standing at the door.
The bombing was the deadliest on Syrian Christians since Bashar al-Assad’s government was overthrown in December, the end of a devastating 13-year civil war.
What officials are saying about the attack
Though no group has taken responsibility for the attack, in a news conference on Sunday night, Noureddine al-Baba, a spokesperson for Syria’s Interior Ministry, said that preliminary investigations suggested affiliation with the Islamic State group.
“The Interior Ministry condemns criminal bombing that targeted Saint Elias Church today, which preliminary investigations indicate was a result of a suicide attack by ISIS, which has left a number of innocent martyrs,” Baba said, according to The Washington Post.
Baba also said that the Interior Ministry had stopped previous bombing attempts by IS militants at a church in Maaloula and at the Sayyida Zeinab Shrine.
In a statement on Monday, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said that his government will mobilize “all our specialized security forces to apprehend all those who participated in and planned this heinous crime.”
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch also gave a statement saying “the treacherous hand of evil struck this evening, claiming our lives, along with the lives of our loved ones who fell today as martyrs during the evening divine liturgy,” per BBC.
According to ABC News, the bombing has been condemned and decried as a terrorist attack by the United States, the European Union and governments across the Middle East.
Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, posted on X condemning the attack.
“These terrible acts of cowardice have no place in the new tapestry of integrated tolerance and inclusion that Syrians are weaving,” he wrote.
The Arab League also condemned the attack; Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he has “hope that the Syrian government will be able to deal with these terrorist organizations,” per BBC.
Sunday’s attack increases fear of Syrian Christians
“The main target of this attack is not only the Christian component in Syria, but all Syrians, regardless of their affiliation,” Baba added.
This attack has revived Syrian Christians’ fears about their future in the country. Sharaa, who is a new leader, has repeatedly promised to protect religious and ethnic minorities, such as Christians, in Syria.
Before civil war broke out in 2011, the country was home to 1.5 million Christians, per BBC. Today, officials estimate there to be around 400,000 Christians in Syria.
The Islamic State group has often targeted Christians and other religious minorities in the country.
The group once had 34,000 square miles of territory, reaching from western Syria to eastern Iraq, with almost 8 million people under its brutal rule, according to BBC.
Even though the group suffered military defeat in Syria in 2019, the U.N. has warned that the threat from IS and its affiliates remains high.