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At least eight people were killed in an explosion at a mosque in a predominantly Alawite neighbourhood in the Syrian city of Homs in what authorities said was an attack aimed at destabilising the country.
The explosion during Friday prayers, in which 18 were also wounded, resulted from devices planted in the mosque, according to a security source cited by Syrian state news.
The Imam Ali bin Abi Talib mosque is located in the largely Alawite district of Wadi al-Dhahab in Homs. Tensions between the Alawite minority and Sunni majority have flared into mass violence since the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who was himself Alawite, last year.
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the “terror crime”, which it said came “in the context of repeated attempts at destabilisation and spreading chaos among the Syrian people”.
The attack comes as President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government seeks to assert security control over the country a year into his rule, and amid a recent uptick in attacks linked to the Islamist extremist group Isis.
His government has also faced increased distrust from the Druze sect, based in the country’s southern Sweida province, after clashes between government forces and Druze militias spiralled into sectarian mass killings of civilians in July.
That sectarian violence has caused widespread fear among Syria’s other minorities. In June, a suicide bombing attack in a church in Damascus left more than 20 people dead.
In a statement, the Supreme Islamic Alawite Council in Syria and the Diaspora said the mosque bombing was a “continuation of the organised extremist terrorism specifically targeted at Alawites and increasingly against other Syrian groups too”.
Syria’s information minister Hamza al-Mustafa said it was clear “remnants of the former regime, Isis, and collaborators had converged on a single objective: to impede the progress of the new state . . . and disrupt civil peace”.
A militant group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed the attack in a statement on social media. The same group said one of its members had carried out the Damascus church bombing this summer.
Images published by state media showed paramedics and security forces inspecting the mosque, which was strewn with debris. The interior ministry said security forces had cordoned off the mosque and were continuing their investigation into the attack.
The head of the emergency unit at the health ministry said the latest toll was eight killed and 18 wounded, according to state media.
In March about 1,400 people, mainly Alawite civilians, were killed in a wave of sectarian bloodshed that roiled the coastal region, an Alawite heartland. The wave of killings came after government forces and their supporters clashed with Assad loyalists.
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