Jordan Bombs Islamic State Bases in Syria After Church Attack

Jordan conducted airstrikes against alleged Islamic State targets in Syria on Tuesday as “retaliation” for a brutal terrorist attack on a Greek Orthodox church in southern Jordan on Friday.

The Syrian government said at least eight people were killed by the Jordanian strikes on southern Syria, “including an elderly man and three children.”

A spokesman for the Jordanian government, Mohammad al-Momani, said the attacks killed at least 20 ISIS terrorists who were “sure threats” against Jordan’s security.

“Jordan’s patience has run out as far as the movements of these terrorist organisations and their targeting of national security,” he said.

Momani added that the kingdom of Jordan regretted any “civilian victims” killed by the strikes. He said the attacks were coordinated with the Syrian government, but offered no details of that coordination.

Officials in Damascus denied any such coordination, and said they have lodged a complaint with Jordan to be followed by a full investigation of the incident.

The Jordanian military said the airstrikes were “conducted in retaliation for the martyrs of last Friday’s Hamoud church attack in Karak.”

A group of terrorist gunmen opened fire on the church during a funeral service and killed at least seven people, plus 34 wounded. Jordan’s King Abdullah II promised the “harshest retaliation” for the church attack, which was the worst slaughter of Christians in Jordan in over half a century.

On Monday, Jordanian troops arrested three men on suspicion of perpetrating the church attack, all of them reportedly Jordanian citizens from the same family. The suspects barricaded themselves inside an empty house and “resisted fiercely,” sustaining “heavy wounds” during the ensuing three-hour gun battle.

Jordanian security officials initially said there was no evidence the three suspects were linked to any outside terrorist groups. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan said on Friday the church attack was “the result of terrorist takfiri ideology.”

The Jordanian military, however, said on Monday that the targets it bombed in Syria were hideouts for terrorists who were connected to the church attackers.

A few hours after the Jordanian airstrikes, the Syrian General Authority for Ports and Customs announced that Syria’s primary border crossing with Jordan would be closed until further notice.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned Jordan’s strikes as “utterly unacceptable” and a “violation of Syrian sovereignty” on Tuesday afternoon. The statement also condemned the church attack in Jordan, and suggested that malevolent third parties were trying to create “discord” between Syria and Jordan.