Jordan hits Syria after attack on church, claims to have killed 20 people, Damascus records seven deaths

Jordan carried out strikes on Monday October 26 which left at least seven dead, including three children, in southern Syria, according to Damascus. The offensive targeted, according to Amman, "terrorist" targets linked to a deadly attack on a church in the kingdom attributed to Islamists that occurred on Friday.

The Jordanian Minister of Telecommunications, Mohamed al-Momni, affirmed for his part that these strikes had killed “more than 20 fighters of the Islamic State group” and destroyed “a major weapons depot of the organization”. Jordanian authorities have vowed to respond firmly to this unprecedented attack against the kingdom's Christians in a Greek Orthodox church, where gunmen opened fire during a funeral and killed nine people, before fleeing.

After announcing the arrest of the three attackers early Monday morning, they announced in the evening that they had carried out airstrikes in southern Syria. These operations "destroyed several terrorist positions" and killed or injured "numerous members" of these organizations linked, according to the Jordanian army, to the perpetrators of the attack.

Closure of the main border crossing with Jordan

“No prior coordination with the Syrian side has been recorded regarding the military operation,” said a Syrian government statement carried by the Sana agency. As a result, the Syrian Borders and Customs Authority announced the closure of the main border crossing with Jordan, known as Nassib on the Syrian side and Jaber on the Jordanian side, "due to the current circumstances", and suspended all "passenger and commercial traffic in both directions". She also called the Jordanian strikes an “unacceptable violation” of its airspace “without any prior coordination” between the two countries.

With nine dead and 25 injured, the attack on the Saint-Georges church, in the village of Hammoud (south), was strongly denounced by the Jordanian authorities. Christians represent around 3% of the 11 million inhabitants, mainly Sunnis.

Jordan said on Tuesday it was keen to preserve its ties with Syria. The government spokesperson assured that he had "great respect for the Syrian state and its brother people, and the coordination between Jordan and Syria in the fight against terrorism as well as against the smuggling of weapons and drugs has been continuous and has lasted for years."