An explosion killed at least eight worshippers at a mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of Syria’s Homs on Friday, state media said.
The attack during Friday prayers is the latest on the Alawite community, and the second blast in a place of worship since extremist authorities took power a year ago, after a suicide bombing in a Damascus church killed 25 people in June.
In a statement on Telegram, terrorist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunna said its fighters “detonated a number of explosive devices” in the Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib Mosque in the central Syrian city.
The group formed after the ouster last year of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, himself a member of the Alawite community, and had claimed responsibility for the June church bombing, though authorities blamed the militant Islamic State group.
State news agency SANA reported an explosion in the mosque in Homs’s Wadi al-Dahab neighbourhood and gave a preliminary toll of at least eight dead and 18 wounded, citing a health ministry official.
An AFP photographer saw security forces cordoning off the area around the mosque while inside, personnel stood guard as red tape encircled the blackened, debris-strewn corner where the blast went off.
Usama Ibrahim, 47, who was being treated in hospital for shrapnel wounds to his head and back, said he was at Friday prayers when he heard a loud explosion.
“The world turned red… and I fell to the ground. Then I saw blood flowing from my head,” he told AFP.
‘Shrapnel all around’
Syria’s interior ministry said in a statement that “a terrorist explosion” targeted the mosque and that authorities had “begun investigating and collecting evidence to pursue the perpetrators of this criminal act”.
SANA quoted a security source as saying that initial investigations indicated that “explosive devices planted inside the mosque” caused the blast.
As victims’ families gathered at the hospital, wounded bookseller Ghadi Maarouf, 38, told AFP that the explosion occurred “just before the imam was to ascend the minbar to deliver the sermon”, referring to the imam’s raised platform.
“It was a huge explosion, and I saw shrapnel flying all around me,” said Maarouf, whose leg was wounded in the blast.
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned a “cowardly criminal act”, saying it came “in the context of repeated desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and spread chaos among the Syrian people”.
The ministry statement reiterated its “firm stance in combating terrorism in all its forms”, vowing to hold the attackers accountable.
Several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan condemned the attack.
