An explosion has killed a minimum of eight individuals and injured 18 others throughout Friday prayers inside a mosque within the Syrian metropolis of Homs, the well being ministry has mentioned.
Photos from Syria’s state-run information company, Sana, present the within of the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque with black, scorched partitions, smashed home windows and blood on the carpet.
Officers imagine that an explosive was detonated contained in the constructing, Sana experiences, citing a safety supply. Whereas authorities are nonetheless trying to find the perpetrators, jihadist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah mentioned it was behind the explosion.
The mosque is within the Wadi al-Dhahab neighbourhood, the place most individuals are a part of the Alawite ethnoreligious group.
Syria’s International Ministry condemned the “terrorist crime”, writing in a statement on X that the “cowardly act is a blatant assault on human and ethical values” designed to “undermine the safety and stability” of the nation.
Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, a Sunni extremist group, has mentioned it carried out the assault in collaboration with one other unidentified group, utilizing explosives planted on the web site.
The group’s obscure origins and opaque affiliations, which got here to prominence in June when it mentioned it was behind a deadly church bombing in Damascus, have raised questions on its true hyperlinks and authenticity.
Some observers have speculated that it might be a entrance for Islamic State group (IS) given the similarity of their messaging and kind of targets.
The newest declare follows a months-long lull in Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah’s claimed assaults, which have largely taken the type of alleged focused killings of minorities and what the group describes as “remnants” of the previous Syrian authorities of Bashar al-Assad.
The blast comes a yr after Syrian insurgent forces overthrew Assad, who’s Alawite. The sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam whose members make up one of many nation’s greatest spiritual minorities.
Since then, Syria has seen a number of waves of sectarian violence, with Alawites fearing reprisals and being topic to crackdowns. Assad fled to Russia, an ally of his regime, the place he and his household have been given asylum.
In March, security forces were accused of killing dozens of Alawites within the coastal province of Latakia, battle monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.
Extra reporting by BBC Monitoring
