Jordan stepped up security at malls, foreign embassies and other sites across the country on Saturday, the U.S. embassy in Amman said, a day after gunmen killed seven people and wounded dozens during a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in the southern village of Hamoud. The attack has renewed attention to security across the region, including in international affairs.
Authorities called Friday’s assault a terrorist attack. Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya said Jordan had been targeted by “a group of extremists.” No group has claimed responsibility, and officials said they were still searching for the attackers. They added that it was too early to say whether the assailants had links to known groups inside or outside Jordan. A government statement attributed the attack to unknown assailants and said investigations were moving at full speed. It did not say whether any gunmen had been captured or killed.
The shooting took place in broad daylight at the church in Karak governorate, in the south of the kingdom. Public Security Directorate chief Obaidullah al-Maaytah told a press conference Friday that seven people were confirmed dead, and he said 27 of the wounded were receiving hospital treatment. That day’s tally of injured stood at 34. Reuters reported Saturday that 40 people were hurt. The counts have risen as more casualties reached hospitals, and ATN, New York could not confirm which figure is final.
Survivors told reporters they heard an explosion as the funeral procession began, after which masked attackers broke into the church and fired for several minutes. Accounts of the number of attackers differ. Footage aired by state television shows two gunmen in some reports and three in others, and one witness who attended the funeral, Khaled Burqan, told the broadcaster that one man carried a rifle and another a pistol. State television said more than 100 people had gathered in and around the church. Surveillance video shows the shooters arriving at the entrance before they stormed in.
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Tarek Ammarin, whose relative was among the wounded, spoke outside a hospital where casualties were being treated. He called the attack “a massacre in every sense of the word.” Security forces have been deployed at the church, and police patrolled outside it Saturday.
King Abdullah visited Karak within hours of the attack and said the perpetrators would be punished “with an iron fist.” Other accounts of his remarks translate the pledge as the harshest retaliation. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan wrote on X that the attack was the product of a terrorist ideology and blind extremism, and that society would not be allowed to go down that path. Queen Rania called the shooting a “heinous crime that has devastated us all.” United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said an attack on a place of worship during a funeral procession is especially heinous.
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Such attacks are rare in Jordan, a U.S.-allied kingdom where Christians are a minority. Greek Orthodox believers make up the largest Christian community in the country, and Jordan is home to several biblical sites that draw pilgrims from around the world. Jordanian authorities say they have repeatedly foiled plots by Islamist militants in recent years. The king is a U.S. partner in the fight against militant groups.
Karak has been the scene of an earlier mass-casualty attack. On Dec. 18, 2016, gunmen assaulted Jordanian police in a series of shootings that included an attack at the Crusader-era Karak Castle, a site popular with tourists. The assaults killed 10 people, among them seven police officers, two Jordanian civilians and a Canadian tourist, and wounded 34. Security forces shot dead four gunmen after a siege of the castle that lasted for hours. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility two days later. At the time, CNN reported that the attack was the first on a civilian target in Jordan in more than a decade.
There is no public evidence yet linking Friday’s attack to the Islamic State or any other group. ATN found no reporting that ties it to Iran or to any other state, and Jordanian officials have not pointed to one.
The attack lands in a tense regional setting. Jordan has been among the U.S. allies in the Middle East hit by Iranian attacks this year, after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran in February. The kingdom had been described as relatively stable before those attacks, which Iran has carried out against several U.S. partners. Authorities have not suggested that Friday’s shooting is related to that conflict.
Police said the investigation is continuing, and the manhunt for those responsible is ongoing. The U.S. embassy in Amman said the heightened security measures were in place Saturday at shopping centers, diplomatic missions and other locations.
The church, known as Saint George’s, sits in the village of Hamoud, about 120 kilometers southwest of Amman by one count. Reporting compiled by ATN, New York indicates that security personnel were posted outside the building a day after the shooting. The Associated Press puts Karak about 180 kilometers south of the capital, and ATN could not reconcile the two distances.
