Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday condemned the suicide bombing perpetrated yesterday by the Daesh terrorist group against a church in Damascus, assuring that Turkey will not allow Syria to fall back into instability and chaos after the fall of the Assad dictatorship.
“We will never allow our neighbour and sister Syria to be dragged back into instability through terrorist organisations,” Erdoğan was quoted by Turkish media as saying, conveying his condolences to the Syrian government and people for the victims of the attack, which left a total of 22 dead and 63 wounded.
“In the face of this vile terrorist act which is an attack on peace, internal stability and the culture of coexistence in Syria, we stand by the people and government of Syria. Turkey will continue to support the Syrian government in its fight against terrorism,” the Turkish president insisted, stressing that the attack was aimed at destabilising the country.
The attack took place on Sunday in the church of St. Elias in the Dwelaa district: according to the latest information, a terrorist carrying an explosive belt entered the church , shot at the worshippers who were inside and then blew himself up by setting off the explosive charge he was carrying. In a statement, the Syrian Interior Ministry attributed the attack to the Daesh terrorist group , which years ago controlled large parts of the country and is still present in rural and desert areas.
Syrian government warned of attacks on Christians and Shi’ites
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights noted that this is the first suicide attack on a church in Syria since the outbreak in 2011 of the civil war that ravaged the country. The attack comes after the Syrian government announced in late May that it had struck a major blow against the extremist organisation’s presence in rural areas around Damascus, in an operation in which numerous weapons were seized.
In early June, Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab warned that Daesh had changed its strategy and was planning “attacks against the Christian and Shia community“, which had been partly thwarted by the Syrian authorities after a series of raids around the capital.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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