A little-known Sunni extremist group has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at a church in Damascus on Sunday, attributed by the Syrian authorities to the jihadist group "Islamic State", reported Agence France-Presse, quoted by BTA.
The attack killed 25 people and injured dozens, causing horror among the Syrian Christian community and other minorities.
In a statement published on "Telegram", the group "Saraya Ansar al-Sunna" claimed that one of its members "bombed the "Saint Elijah" church in the "Duwayla" neighborhood of Damascus" after "provocations", without giving further details.
The Islamist rulers, who came to power after the fall of long-time President Bashar al-Assad in December, blamed the attack on "Islamic State" and announced several arrests as part of a security operation against cells linked to the jihadist group.
In a statement, "Saraya Ansar al-Sunna" rejected the version as "false and fabricated". The group said that "what is coming will not give you a break, because our fighters are fully prepared".
In March, a dispute arose after residents protested against the playing of Islamic religious songs from cars in front of the "St. Elijah" church. The attack was the first suicide bombing in a church in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It comes amid a period of sectarian violence marked by massacres of members of the Alawite community, to which Bashar al-Assad belongs, and clashes with fighters from the Druze community.
The violence has raised renewed concerns about the ability of the government, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which toppled Assad, to control radical fighters. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was previously affiliated with Al-Qaeda, severed ties with it in 2016.
Ayman Jawad al-Tamimi, a researcher and analyst in Syria, believes that Saraya Ansar al-Sunna may be a "supporter of the Islamic State" a breakaway group formed mainly by defectors from "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" and other factions, but currently operating independently of "Islamic State". He did not rule out the possibility that the group is simply a covert structure of "Islamic State".
According to a source in the group, cited by At Tamimi, "Saraya Ansar al-Sunna" is led by a disillusioned former member of "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" and includes among its leaders a former member of the jihadist group "Khuras ad-Din", also known as "Al-Qaeda in Syria", which announced its dissolution in January on the orders of the new government in Damascus.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that "Saraya Ansar al-Sunna" has already threatened attacks on the Alawite community and carried out an attack on the minority in Hama province earlier this year. The group is accused of taking part in the massacres in March, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said killed about 1,700 people, most of them civilians.