Across Jordan, flags have flown at half-mast and security has been visibly stepped up in the capital, Amman, since a deadly attack on a church on Friday.
The attack on a Greek Orthodox church during a funeral service in the village of Hamoud, in Karak governorate, which killed nine people and wounded at least 34, has left Jordanians in shock.
“We have never experienced anything like this... It was a shock for us. Mixed feelings of sadness and fury,” Rami Kawar, a 47-year-old Christian Jordanian from Madaba, told Middle East Eye.
In the early hours of Monday, security forces arrested three suspects, members of the same family.
“We were never made to feel different in Jordan. We never ever felt discriminated against as Christians in this country,” said Zohrab Markarian, an Armenian Jordanian.
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“The Muslims, they are more in pain than the Christians. They are hurt too.”
The 73-year-old, who worked as a photographer for the late King Hussein for 25 years, was among the crowd that gathered on Sunday in Paris Square, in Amman’s al-Weibdeh district, for a vigil held for the victims of the attack.
It was one of many vigils held across Jordan over the weekend.
Muslims and Christians lit candles in solidarity with the Christian community and recited a short chapter of the Quran for the victims before joining in a rendition of the famous Arabic anthem Mawtini (My Homeland), many with tears in their eyes.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and government officials initially said there was no indication that the suspects had links to any outside parties.
Late on Monday, however, Jordan carried out strikes on what it said were militant hideouts in southern Syria, after concluding that the suspects were linked to “terrorist groups” based in the country.
The Jordanian military said the operation had been coordinated with Damascus. But Syria said it had received no prior notice and has opened an investigation into the strikes.
The raids killed at least seven people, including three children and a woman, in Syria’s Daraa and Sweida, according to Syrian authorities.
“The perpetrators of the attack on the church were two brothers and the third was their relative by marriage,” Jordan’s Director of Public Security Obeidallah al-Maaytah told a press conference.
The three suspects - Hazza Zaidan Mohammed, Meshal Zaidan Mohammed and Ahmad Sami Hussein - were arrested after around two-hour exchange of fire with Jordanian security forces in the village of al-Judayyda, in Karak governorate. A large cache of firearms and ammunition was also found in their possession.
A rare target
Between 150 and 200 people were inside and around St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church in Hamoud for a funeral service at the time of the attack, witnesses said.
Many of the victims were aged between 50 and 70.
Karak governorate, about 120km south-west of Amman, is home to one of Jordan’s largest Christian communities.
Christians make up around three percent of Jordan’s population, roughly 250,000 people.
'We were never made to feel different in Jordan. We never ever felt discriminated against as Christians in this country'
- Zohrab Markarian, a Christian Armenian Jordanian
Jordan has long faced threats from Islamic State (IS) militants, but attacks targeting the country’s Christian community have been rare
The last attack on a similar scale, though not targeting Christians, took place in 2016, also in Karak, when gunmen killed 10 people, including a Canadian tourist. It was claimed by IS.
Following the strikes on Daraa and Sweida on Monday, Syria closed its main border crossing with Jordan.
A long-standing US ally, the kingdom has fought armed groups near its borders, including IS, and joined the US-led coalition against it.
It has also long faced radicalisation among young people. During the Syrian civil war, hundreds of young Jordanians left the kingdom to join armed groups in Syria and Iraq.
In April 2025, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood and banned all its activities, shortly after authorities announced the arrest of 16 people linked to the group over an alleged plot to use rockets and drones.
The ban came less than a year after the Islamic Action Front, the group’s political arm, became the largest party in Jordan’s parliament, although pro-government members retained a majority of seats.
'The original people of the land'
In the early 2000s, Amman was hit by a number of suicide attacks carried out by al-Qaeda.
For Jordanians who remember that period as a painful chapter in the country’s history, Friday’s attack came as a shock. Many hope it does not signal a resurgence of radical ideas among some of the country’s youth.
“God willing, they only represent themselves,” Maaytah said, referring to the three suspects.
On Friday, King Abdullah II said: “The terrorist attack against Karak will be met with the harshest retaliation. Those who delude themselves into thinking that they can divide Jordanians with their bullets have no chance in the face of our unity.”
'The people who died in Karak are Jordanians, whether they’re Muslims or Christians or anything, they’re Jordanians'
- Omar al-Fouri, president of the Al-Weibdeh Old Residents’ Association
“All Jordanians, from north to south, are partners in land and fate, and nothing stands between them.”
The king was in his military uniform when he visited the wounded in the hospital on Friday. Other members of the royal family were also in Karak for the funeral of the victims.
“The people who died in Karak are Jordanians, whether they’re Muslims or Christians or anything, they’re Jordanians,” said Omar al-Fouri, president of the Al-Weibdeh Old Residents’ Association.
Al-Weibdeh is home to a notable Christian community and several of the capital’s churches.
“Christians are not new to this land. They’re not guests here. They are the original people of the land,” Fouri told MEE.
He says Jordanians have faith in the extra security measures the king ordered immediately after the attack to protect churches and Christian community centres across the country.
The minister of local administration, Walid Masri, announced on Sunday that heads of municipal committees had been ordered to name a street in each municipality after one of the nine victims.
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