A little-known Sunni Muslim extremist group claimed responsibility on June 24 for a weekend suicide attack against a church in Damascus, while the Syrian government insisted they were part of the Islamic State group.
The June 22 attack killed 25 people and wounded dozens, striking terror into Syria’s Christian community and other minorities. A statement from Saraya Ansar al-Sunna said an operative “blew up the Saint Elias church in the Dwelaa neighbourhood of Damascus,” adding that it came after an unspecified “provocation.”
Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, had quickly blamed the attack on the Islamic State group and announced several arrests on June 23 in a security operation against IS-affiliated cells.
IS did not claim responsibility for the attack. The Saraya Ansar al-Sunna statement, on the messaging app Telegram, said the government’s version of events was “untrue, fabricated.” The spokesman for the interior ministry, Nureddine al-Baba, said during a press conference on June 24 that the cell behind the attack “officially follows Daesh,” adding that Saraya Ansar al-Sunna was “not independent… as it follows Daesh.” Daesh is the Arabic acronym for IS.
At the funeral of some of those killed in Damascus’s Holy Cross Church, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John X called the attack an “unacceptable incident.” Addressing Sharaa, the patriarch said, “The heinous crime that took place at Mar Elias Church is the first massacre of its kind in Syria since 1860,” referring to the mass killings of Christians in Damascus under the Ottoman Empire. “We refuse for these events to take place during the revolution and during your honourable era.”
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