Jordan Orders Manhunt After Gunmen Fire on Funeral at Karak Church
Eight people were killed and 40 wounded when attackers opened fire during a service at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak.
By Priya Singh ·
Jordan's King Abdullah directed security forces to track down those who attacked a Greek Orthodox church in Karak, the royal court said. Eight people died and 40 more were hurt. The search for the perpetrators was continuing, and no group had claimed the attack.
The shooting happened on Friday as a funeral was taking place inside the church, roughly 120km southwest of Amman. Gunmen fired for several minutes in daylight. Jordanian officials labeled the assault an act of extremist terrorism. The US embassy in Amman reported that Jordan had increased security at shopping malls, foreign embassies and other locations.
Abdullah traveled to Karak within hours of the violence. He said those responsible would be punished with an iron fist. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan wrote on X that the attack grew from a terrorist ideology and blind extremism, adding: "We will not allow society to go down this path." Jordan declared three days of national mourning, the state-run Petra News Agency reported, and officials said it was too early to say whether the attackers had ties to known groups inside or outside the country.
Nasser al-Burqan, a lawyer who was at the service, told Reuters that one attacker stood about two metres from him and fired a handgun at him. Later his son called from a hospital to say he had been shot in the leg. Al-Burqan said that once the gunfire stopped he looked through a window behind him and saw two assailants, one masked and one unmasked, the latter holding a handgun.
At a hospital treating the wounded, Tarek Ammarin, whose relative was hurt, called it "a massacre, a massacre in every sense of the word." Bahjat al-Rushda, mayor of the nearby village of Shihan, called the attack wicked and said: "God willing, this country will remain safe."
Assaults of this kind are rare in Jordan, though authorities in the US-allied kingdom say they have repeatedly disrupted plots in recent years by violent groups working from a strict reading of Islam. Karak has a minority Christian population, and Jordan holds several biblical sites that draw Christian pilgrims from around the world.
Source: Al Jazeera
