Jordan carried out airstrikes against armed groups in Syria on Monday evening in retaliation for Friday’s attack on a Greek Orthodox Church in the southern Jordanian city of Karak that killed nine people, the Jordanian air force said in a statement.
The operation “resulted in the killing and wounding of many members of these terrorist groups and the destruction of a number of their vehicles,” the statement said. It did not identify the groups or specify the exact locations of the strikes.
The strikes sparked an outcry in Syria, where officials said several civilians had been killed and accused Jordan of carrying out the operation without notifying Syrian authorities.
Syria’s civil defence agency said it had recovered the bodies of seven people killed in strikes in the southern provinces of Daraa and Sweida. Five members of one family, including three children and a woman, were killed when a strike hit a tent in rural Daraa, while three other family members were injured, it said. An 80-year-old man and a 60-year-old man were killed in separate strikes.
The Syrian government said the operation had taken place “without prior coordination or notification with the Syrian side”. It said authorities were investigating the circumstances and had opened communication channels with Jordan to discuss the situation.
Syria’s General Authority for Ports and Customs later announced the closure of the country’s main border crossing with Jordan.
Earlier on Monday, Jordanian authorities arrested three men in connection with Friday’s attack, which also wounded more than two dozen people. The arrests followed a shootout at dawn, during which all three men were wounded, officials said.
The attack targeted the Greek Orthodox Church during a funeral in Karak, about 90km (55 miles) south of the capital, Amman. The city is home to a minority Christian population.
The attack shocked the country, prompting Jordan to declare three days of mourning for the victims. No group immediately claimed responsibility, and the attackers’ motive remained unknown.
Later on Monday, the Public Security Directorate identified the arrested men as brothers Hazzah Zaidan Mohammad and Mishal Zaidan Mohammad, and their brother-in-law Ahmad Sami Hussein. All three are Jordanian and were taken into custody in Karak.
The agency’s chief described the gunmen as “takfiri”, a term used for Sunni militants, but said they were not linked to any organised group.
“They only represent themselves,” Maj Gen Obaidallah Abd Rabbo Al-Maayta told a news conference. He also said a large cache of munitions had been found in the abandoned house where Jordanian forces apprehended the men.
Jordan’s Interior Minister Mazen Al-Faraya said the attack was the result of “a terroristic, extremist way of thinking”.
“If this way of thinking is not resolved, we will see incidents like this again,” he told reporters.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II had ordered authorities to respond with “an iron fist” against what he called the outlaws of Islam and anyone seeking to undermine the unity of the Jordanian people.
“We vowed the terrorists would not escape punishment, and no proponent of dark ideologies that divide Jordanians will be tolerated,” he said in a statement on Monday.
The arrests brought some relief to relatives of the victims.
“Despite the profound and immense tragedy, what happened today has eased our grief — and the grief of the Jordanian people — not just for us, the families of the martyrs,” Khaled al-Borqan, a survivor of the attack and a relative of three of those killed, told Al-Mamlaka.
“Despite the sadness and pain, the news brought us joy,” Fares Halaseh, an uncle of one of the victims and a survivor of the attack, told the TV station.
But the pain remained, he added. “We will not forget this agony for years to come.”