By Al-Fassel | 2025-06-25

A little-known extremist group that analysts suspect is linked to the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) claimed responsibility June 24 for a weekend suicide attack on a Damascus church that killed 25 people.

In a statement the group, "Saraya Ansar al-Sunna," said an operative blew up Mar Elias church in the Dwelaa neighbourhood of Damascus following an unspecified "provocation," AFP reported.

ISIS did not claim responsibility for the attack, which killed 25 people and wounded around 63 others, but Syria-based analyst and researcher Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi said Saraya Ansar al-Sunna could be a pro-ISIS splinter group.

The group could be comprised of defectors from Tahrir al-Sham and other factions that are "currently operating independently of ISIS," al-Tamimi said.

He also said it could be "just an ISIS front group." An analysis of the Telegram channels that support the new group and speak on its behalf proved that its religious rhetoric and political outlook are not at odds with those of ISIS.

Saraya Ansar al-Sunna announced its emergence in late January via a Telegram account, BBC Monitoring reported in February.

It claims to be a "decentralized" network operating through lone wolves, individuals or small cells with minimal connections to one another, it said.

The group's name and declared key targets "reflect its explicitly sectarian identity and direction," which are aligned with those of ultra-hardline extremist groups such as ISIS, the monitoring group said.

"The new group has also expressed clear contempt for other minorities, such as the Christians and Druze," it added, noting that its "ultra-violent rhetoric" is "broadly similar to that displayed by ISIS and its supporters."

'Rejecting violence and terrorism'

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East John X pointed out that "the heinous crime that took place at Mar Elias church is the first massacre of its kind in Syria since 1860."

Muslim clerics denounced as going against the essence of Islam, which considers Christians to be "people of the book."

"We express our complete rejection of targeting places of worship and terrorizing believers," Syria's top Sunni cleric Grand Mufti Osama al-Rifai said June 23.

"We reiterate our firm position in rejecting violence and terrorism and criminal acts, whatever the motives."

From Beirut, Supreme Islamic Shia Council vice president Sheikh Ali al-Khatib sent a message to the patriarch expressing his condolences and affirming his community's solidarity, L'Orient Le Jour reported.

He denounced the "cowardly crime, committed by murderers whose only mission is bloodshed."

"Christianity is a deeply rooted and permanent part of this land, and extremists are heretics," teacher Raji Rizkallah told AFP from the funeral of some of the victims at Damascus's Holy Cross Church.

"They have no place in the present or the future."