BEIRUT: A little-known Sunni Muslim extremist group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a Damascus church over the weekend that authorities have blamed on the Islamic State group.
Sunday’s attack killed 25 and wounded dozens of others, striking terror into Syria’s Christian community and other minorities.
A statement from Saraya Ansar al-Sunna said a group operative “blew up the Saint Elias church in the Dwelaa neighbourhood of Damascus”, saying it came after unspecified “provocation”.
The Islamist authorities who took power after ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December had quickly blamed the attack on IS and announced several arrests on Monday in a security operation against IS-affiliated cells.
But the Saraya Ansar al-Sunna statement on messaging app Telegram, where it counts several hundred followers, said the government’s version of events was “untrue, fabricated”.
The group, which was formed after Assad’s ouster, vowed that “what is coming will not give you respite” warning that “our soldiers... are fully prepared”.
In March, a dispute took place in front of the Saint Elias church, as residents expressed opposition to Islamic chants being played on loudspeakers from a car.
Sunday’s attack was the first suicide bombing in a church in Syria since the country’s civil war erupted in 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
It followed sectarian violence in recent months including massacres of members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs and clashes with Druze fighters, with security one of the new authorities’ greatest challenges.
The bloodshed has raised concerns about the government’s ability to control radical fighters, after Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that ousted Assad.
HTS was once affiliated with Al-Qaeda before breaking ties in 2016.
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a Syria-based analyst and researcher, said Saraya Ansar al-Sunna could be “a pro-IS splinter originating primarily from defectors from HTS... and other factions but currently operating independently of IS”.
He also said it could be “just an IS front group”.
Citing a Saraya source, Tamimi said a disillusioned former HTS functionary heads the group, whose leadership includes a former member of Hurras al-Din, the Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate which announced in January it was dissolving, upon the orders of the new government.
The Observatory said Saraya Ansar al-Sunna had previously threatened to target Alawites and had carried out an attack in Hama province earlier this year.
The group is accused of involvement in the sectarian massacres in March that the Observatory said killed more than 1,700 people, mostly Alawite civilians.
