Jordan air strikes, USA News: Jordan has struck back by launching air strikes in southern Syria following a brutal terror attack on a church that left nine Christians dead and 28 injured. The country’s air force confirmed the raids had killed at least 20 Islamic State fighters linked to last week’s fatal shooting of mourners attending a Greek Orthodox funeral in Karak.
No specifics were given regarding the identity of the groups targeted or the exact locations hit, with strikes reported across the Daraa and Sweida provinces of Syria. Jordan stated it had targeted hideouts associated with those suspected of involvement in Friday’s attack. King Abdullah II had vowed Jordan would confront the terrorist act that targeted Karak with the harshest penalties, declaring that the blood of Jordanians is precious and that the nation would strike with an iron fist.
Government officials labeled the shooting a terrorist crime. Christians make up roughly 2.1 per cent of Jordan’s population, with the Greek Orthodox Church as the largest denomination. The kingdom, where an estimated 97 per cent of residents are Muslim, is home to numerous biblical and Christian sites.
Syria’s civil defence agency reported recovering seven bodies from strike sites, with health officials telling state media that the dead included women, children and an elderly man. In one incident in rural Daraa, a strike hit a tent sheltering a single family, killing five of its members and wounding three others. Two further men died in separate strikes elsewhere. The Syrian government said it was investigating the full circumstances of the targeting.
Damascus strongly protested Jordan’s claim that it liaised with it before conducting the strikes. Protesting the action, Syria shut the Nassib crossing, the sole passenger and commercial border point between the two countries. In response to escalating tensions, Syria confirmed it had opened direct channels of communication with Jordanian officials to address the operation’s fallout while launching comprehensive investigations.
Friday’s church attack saw two gunmen emerge from a vehicle and open fire on mourners gathered at St George’s Greek Orthodox Church in northern Karak during a funeral procession. Alongside the nine fatalities, 34 people sustained injuries in the attack. Jordanian security forces apprehended three suspects in connection with the church shooting earlier on Monday before the airstrikes took place. Senior government security officials confirmed that two brothers and their brother-in-law were detained after being discovered hiding in a disused building in Karak before dawn. Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya told state-affiliated television that all three attackers held Jordanian nationality and had been holed up in a building in one of the villages near the site of the attack. The Public Security Directorate identified the detained individuals only as terrorists without releasing their names.
