King Abdullah Sends Security Forces to Karak After Church Gunfire
Eight people died and 40 were wounded when gunmen opened fire on a funeral inside a Greek Orthodox church, and no group has claimed responsibility.
By Ricardo Brooks ·
King Abdullah ordered Jordan's security forces on Saturday to hunt down those who attacked a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate. The royal court said eight people were killed and 40 others were wounded in the shooting. Authorities are still searching for the perpetrators.
Gunmen fired for several minutes in broad daylight on Friday while a funeral was under way at the church, about 120km southwest of the capital, Amman. Jordanian officials called the incident an act of extremist terrorism. No group has claimed responsibility, and officials said it was too early to say whether the attackers had ties to known groups inside or outside the country. The state-run Petra News Agency reported that Jordan declared three days of national mourning.
King Abdullah, who works with the US against armed groups in the region, traveled to Karak within hours of the shooting and said the perpetrators would be punished with an iron fist. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan wrote on X that the attack came from a terrorist ideology and blind extremism, adding: "We will not allow society to go down this path." The US embassy in Amman said Jordan had increased security at shopping malls, foreign embassies and other sites across the country.
Video footage taken on Saturday showed police posted outside the church. Nasser al-Burqan, a lawyer who survived, told the Reuters news agency that an attacker stood about two metres away and fired a handgun at him. His son, who was also at the mass, later phoned to say he had been shot in the leg and was in hospital. Al-Burqan said that once the gunfire stopped he looked through a window behind him and saw two assailants, one masked and the other carrying a handgun.
At a hospital treating the wounded, Tarek Ammarin, whose relative was hurt, called it a massacre in every sense of the word. Bahjat al-Rushda, mayor of Shihan village in Karak, called the attack wicked and said: "God willing, this country will remain safe." Attacks like this one are rare in Jordan, though authorities in the US-allied kingdom say they have foiled plots in recent years by violent groups driven by a strict interpretation of Islam. Karak has a minority Christian population, and Jordan contains biblical sites that draw Christian pilgrims.
Source: Al Jazeera
