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2025-06-25 Syria-Lebanon-Iran
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Shadowy jihadist group claims Damascus church attack, as government blames ISIS
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[IsraelTimes] Saraya Ansar al-Sunna — possibly an offshoot of Syrian president’s old rebel group HTS — says it ‘blew up the Saint Elias church,’ killing 25, over unspecified ‘provocation’
A little-known Sunni Moslem bad boy group grabbed credit on Tuesday for a weekend suicide kaboom against a church in Damascus, while the Syrian government insisted they were part of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group.
Sunday’s attack killed 25 people and maimed 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 neighborhood of Damascus," adding that it came after an unspecified "provocation."
Syria’s Islamist authorities, who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
in December, had quickly blamed the attack on the Islamic State group and announced several arrests on Monday in a security operation against ISIS-affiliated cells.
ISIS 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 front man for the interior ministry, Nureddine al-Baba, said during a presser on Tuesday that the cell behind the attack "officially follows ISIS," adding that Saraya Ansar al-Sunna was "not independent... as it follows ISIS," using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.
Baba also said that the church attacker was not Syrian, without specifying his nationality, and came to Damascus with another jacket wallah from the al-Hol camp in the northeast for displaced people and relatives of ISIS members.
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a Syria-based analyst and researcher, said Saraya Ansar al-Sunna could be "a pro-[ISIS] splinter originating primarily from defectors from HTS... and other factions but currently operating independently of [ISIS]."
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
 ...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS) is the Islamist group headed by Syria’s now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa that led the overthrow of Assad.
Baba said it could be just a "front group" for ISIS.
Citing a source within the group, Tamimi said a disillusioned former HTS functionary headed Saraya.
He added that its leadership included a former member of Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda affiliate that announced in January it was dissolving on the orders of the new government.
’FIRST MASSACRE OF ITS KIND IN SYRIA SINCE 1860’
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 honorable era."
Sharaa had called the patriarchate’s adviser to send his condolences, an act John X called "insufficient."
To ululations and tears, nine white coffins were carried into the church, amid a heavy security presence in the area.
"These events are fleeting and have no value in history," teacher Raji Rizkallah, 50, told AFP.
"Christianity is a deeply rooted and permanent part of this land, and holy warriors are heretics."
Assad’s government portrayed itself as a protector of minorities, who were subject to numerous attacks claimed by jihadist groups during the 14-year civil war.
The new authorities have repeatedly pledged to protect minorities, despite the eruption of sectarian violence on multiple occasions in recent months.
The suicide kaboom followed massacres of members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs and festivities with Druze fighters.
The bloodshed has raised concerns about the government’s ability to control radical fighters who took part in Assad’s overthrow.
HTS was once affiliated with al-Qaeda before breaking ties in 2016.
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-06-25 2025-06-25 01:01||
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