Jordan hits Syria after arrests in Karak church shooting case

Five people, including women, children, and an elderly man, died in a Jordanian airstrike on a village in Syria's Daraa province on Monday. Jordanian fighter jets targeted what the military described as terrorist organizations in retaliation for a funeral shooting in Karak that killed nine people last Friday.

The sequence of events began on Friday when gunmen opened fire at a Greek Orthodox church funeral in Karak, leaving nine dead and 34 injured. On Monday morning, before dawn, Jordanian security forces arrested two brothers and their brother-in-law in an abandoned house near the attack site. The Public Security Directorate identified the detainees as the terrorists responsible for the massacre.

Jordan's Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya told state-affiliated television that all three attackers were Jordanian nationals who had been hiding in a building in a nearby village. Jordan stated that it had coordinated the retaliatory strike with the Syrian government. However, Syrian authorities said they had not received notification of the Monday attack before it occurred.

In response to the air raid, Syrian officials announced the complete suspension of passenger and commercial traffic through the Nassib border crossing. Nassib is the only passenger and commercial entry point between the two countries. Syrian authorities stated that the closure aims to ensure the safety of travelers and workers while direct communication channels are opened with Jordan.

Syria also said it launched comprehensive investigations to establish the full circumstances of the targeting. Jordanian officials reported that their jets killed and wounded several terrorists in the strike, though they provided no specific numbers of casualties beyond the five deaths confirmed by Syrian health officials.