Whereas Syrian authorities rapidly blamed the Islamic State for the June 22, 2025 suicide bombing that killed 25 Christians and injured 63 others throughout Divine Liturgy at Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus, members of Syria’s Christian community allege the assault was a government-orchestrated false flag meant to terrorize minorities whereas preserving believable deniability.
Christian sources are overtly difficult the official narrative. “This assertion by the federal government is a lie, and the Julani government’s narrative shouldn’t be conveyed as a result of we give them legitimacy,” one supply stated.
The reference to “Julani” invokes President al-Sharaa’s former nom de guerre, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, below which he fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) below Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—the group that later grew to become ISIS. Many Syrian Christians consider the present president is similar jihadist chief as soon as needed by the U.S. with a $10 million bounty.
Sources additional allege that “multiple supply has confirmed the bomber was a member of Basic Safety affiliated with al-Julani,” suggesting the assault was not carried out by exterior terrorists however by the regime’s personal safety forces.
On the bottom, many Christians consider the bombing was orchestrated by the Damascus authorities, now below the management of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a delegated terrorist group. “That is how all folks suppose in Syria,” one supply remarked.
Such accusations mirror a deep erosion of belief within the regime’s declare to guard non secular minorities. One Christian described the bombing as “full-blown terrorism represented by the empty terrorist head of the Syrian regime,” once more referring to al-Sharaa as the previous jihadist commander. For a lot of, the present authorities is solely a rebranded model of the extremist menace that has lengthy plagued them.
Doubts have additionally been raised concerning the group that claimed accountability for the bombing. “A bunch calling itself Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed the assault,” one Christian supply famous, “however based mostly on our monitoring, it was solely based final February.” They concluded the group was possible “a pretend web page created to assert accountability for acts carried out by terrorists inside the authorities.”
This evaluation aligns with Syrian analysts who describe Saraya Ansar al-Sunna as an obscure outfit that emerged following the regime’s collapse in late 2024. Believed to incorporate defectors from HTS and other jihadist factions, it’s suspected of being both an impartial offshoot or a entrance for ISIS, reportedly led by former HTS and Hurras al-Din commanders.
The timing has raised specific suspicion: a brand new group surfaces simply months earlier than the worst church assault in over a decade, conveniently offering cowl for regime involvement whereas sustaining the phantasm of an exterior jihadist menace.
Syria’s present authorities, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formally designated a International Terrorist Group by the U.S. State Division in 2018, has well-documented roots in jihadist extremism. Shaped in 2017 by way of a merger of a number of factions, its core was Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate till 2016. Regardless of makes an attempt to rebrand as average, HTS has maintained its extremist character.
Probably the most damning proof of HTS’s enduring extremism got here in the course of the March 2025 massacres of Alawites alongside the coast. From March 6 to 17, over 1,000 folks had been killed in systematic sectarian violence, together with at the least 745–800 Alawite civilians. Armed teams affiliated with the federal government reportedly went door-to-door asking residents their non secular affiliation, then executed them in the event that they had been Alawite.
A number of human rights organizations have documented direct authorities complicity within the March 2025 massacres. CNN’s investigation revealed government-aligned forces finishing up abstract executions, looting, arson, and sectarian slurs, a few of which had been filmed and posted on-line, with fighters overtly calling for “ethnic cleaning.”
Stories surfaced of HTS-affiliated teams utilizing mosques to declare that “killing Alawites is compulsory,” with supporting movies circulating on social media. Whereas the regime claimed to be preventing pro-Assad remnants, it more and more relied on exterior militias—overseas jihadists and Sunni fighters below Turkish safety, who intentionally focused Alawite civilians.
The Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre famous that since early 2025, experiences of Alawite civilians being killed by “unknown gunmen” have circulated weekly, with victims constantly focused for his or her sectarian identification, not for any function within the former regime. The dimensions and sample of violence point out these weren’t remoted incidents however a part of a broader, systematic marketing campaign in opposition to minorities.
Given the documented sample of sectarian violence by HTS and the direct involvement of government-affiliated forces in massacres of spiritual minorities, Syrian Christians’ suspicions about regime complicity within the church bombing are totally justified. Regardless of public guarantees of tolerance, the HTS-led authorities has actively enabled or participated in mass sectarian violence. When a regime rooted in al-Qaeda has already orchestrated the slaughter of 1 non secular minority, its declare that it will by no means goal one other loses all credibility.
The swift attribution of the Mar Elias bombing to ISIS, coupled with the federal government’s historical past of sponsoring sectarian assaults, factors to a sample that can not be ignored. For Syria’s remaining 400,000 Christians, down from 1.5 million earlier than the conflict, these allegations will not be mere hypothesis however an existential warning. If the very authorities claiming to guard them is actually accountable for the assaults, then there is no such thing as a manner that Christians can survive in Syria.
