Seven Syrians are dead. The Jordanian air force carried out airstrikes on armed groups in southern Syria on Tuesday, targeting retaliation for last week’s massacre at a Greek Orthodox Church in Karak. Syrian civil defence officials confirmed the toll, identifying five members of a single family—three children and a woman—among the victims when a strike hit a tent in rural Daraa. Two other men, aged 80 and 60, died in separate impacts. Three additional family members sustained injuries.
Damascus was not consulted. The Syrian government stated the operation proceeded without prior coordination or notification. In a sharp escalation, Syria immediately closed its main border crossing with Jordan. Authorities in Damascus said they were investigating the incident and had opened communication channels with Amman to discuss the breach of sovereignty, according to news agency AP. Jordan’s air force claimed the operation killed and wounded several militants and destroyed multiple vehicles, though it refused to name the targeted groups or disclose exact strike coordinates.
The retaliation follows Friday’s shooting at the Greek Orthodox Church in Karak, located about 90 km south of Amman. Nine people died and more than two dozen were wounded during a funeral. Jordanian police arrested three men—brothers Hazzah Zaidan Mohammad and Mishal Zaidan Mohammad, and their brother-in-law Ahmad Sami Hussein—on Monday after a dawn shootout. All three suspects, Jordanian nationals, were wounded and taken into custody. Major General Obaidallah Abd Rabbo Al-Maayta, head of the public security directorate, labeled the attackers “takfiri,” a term for Sunni militants who deem others apostates, but insisted they acted alone without links to organized groups. Police recovered a large cache of ammunition from the abandoned house where the men were apprehended.
King Abdullah II ordered a firm response, vowing that perpetrators would not escape punishment. Interior Minister Mazen Al-Faraya attributed the violence to extremist ideology, warning that similar incidents could recur if such thinking went unaddressed. The closure of the border crossing now threatens to strain diplomatic ties further, with both nations likely to engage in tense negotiations over the legality of the cross-border strikes.