Islamic State suicide bombing in Damascus church kills 20 and injures 52 | Syria

Syrian officials said that the suicide bombing of the Islamic State (IS), which aims for a church in Damascus, killed and was injured.

The Sunday night attack has been the first suicide bombardment in Syria since former Syrian President Bashar Assad was overthrown in December and replaced by a government -led government.

The Syrian interior minister said that during the prayers, a man of the Greek Orthodox Saint Elias church in the former Christian neighborhood of Damascus was entered. Eyewitnesses in the church reported a second armed man who did not fly himself in the air, but also fire at the existing 150 or more worship.

The interior of the church shows the videos of the explosion and the broken rows overthrown by the bloody bodies of the congregations. The nearby residents reported that the security forces tried to establish a cord around the region and that they heard a big explosion and then the sound of the sirens and that they were civil defense staff directed towards the church.

The attack arrived after months of low -level activity and propaganda for months because the group tried to benefit from the security gap created after Assad’s falling to reconstruct itself. Syrian officials, the group’s caches to support Assad regime troops fleeing weapons and ammunition left by the weapons and ammunition, he said.

The Syrian government, ruled by the former leaders of the Islamic rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), has been carrying out anti-country raids since its arrival. Although he was still a rebellious group, HTS was fighting, he sees it as a source of instability and radicalization for rival rebel groups in areas under control.

Since the fall of the Assad regime, he has now tried to use the visible moderation of the former Islamist rebels, who have now ruled the country as a recruitment tool for Islamist warriors.

Social media channels and propaganda published pictures of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who met US President Donald Trump in Riyadh in May.

Syrian officials stressed that they would be protected under the administration of religious minorities. Security personnel usually broadcast at each entrance of the Christian quarter of the city and control the cars as they arrive.

Syrian Information Minister Hamza Al-Mustafa said: “This coward action contradicts the citizenship values ​​that unite all of us. As Syrians, we emphasize the importance of national unity and civilian peace and call on to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between all components of society.”

Damascus Municipality, security services are investigating the conditions of bombing, he said.

Although nominally the power of most Syria, the country’s new government struggled to expand its control over the country. Syria is still full of militias, some are more radical than others. The country’s Ministry of Defense is in the process of disarming those who refuse to fold the militias into a united national army and to join the ranks.

Since the regional defeat of Syria’s so-called caliphate, the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are mostly US-backed, lead the Anti-Is War. The cooperation between the SDF and the new Syrian government is increasing in the war, but it is still in infancy.

Other members of the US and Iraq and Syria anti-IS coalition, Syria’s resurrection as one of the key concerns for the country.