Dead after a stop at the church in Damascus

Perpetrator blows into the air

Attack on church in Syria – at least 20 dead

There was an attack in the Syrian capital. The Ministry of the Interior suspects a terrorist organization behind it.

At least 20 believers were killed in a suicide attack in a Christian church in the Syrian capital Damascus. Another 52 people suffered injuries at the explosion in the Mar-Elias Church, the Syrian Ministry of Health said.

According to the Syrian Ministry of the Interior, the assassin entered the church in the Christ district of Al-Duwaila, with the submission of shots. Then he blew himself up during the Sunday mass. The Ministry expected him to the Islamist terrorist organization “Islamic State” (IS).

Eyewitnesses stated that they had heard a loud explosion. Then they heard screams and saw people walking through the streets with blood -smeared faces.

The IS militia in Syria recently committed attacks against Troops of the Islamist government in Damascus, which is moderate. At the end of May, IS had committed an attack in the southern province of Sweida to a vehicle from the transitional government army.

In December, fighters of the Islamist HTS militia and ally groups overthrew the long-time Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad. The HTS is an earlier branch from Al Qaeda, but had long since removed from the terror network. The transitional government cited by the former HTS boss Ahmed al-Sharaa has been trying to make a more moderate image since taking office.

Before the civil war, which began in 2015, the proportion of Christians in the Syrian population was eight to ten percent. Today 300,000 to 700,000 Christians still live in the mostly Muslim country. Fundamentalist Islamists were repeated after 2015 with extreme violence against Christian believers and their worshipers. The Al-Duwaila district has also been the target of attacks in recent years.

The IS militia had conquered large parts of Syria and the neighboring Iraq in the course of the Syrian Civil War, which was broken out in 2011, but was pushed back and is currently currently present in the desert areas. Since Assad’s fall, there have rarely have reports on attacks by jihadists outside the Kurdish -controlled areas in northern Syria. US President Donald Trump, who recently lifted the sanctions against Syria, had asked Al-Sharaa to support the United States to prevent the IS militia.