RIYADH: Detained members of the Daesh terrorist group have confessed to their involvement in the June 2025 bombing of Mar Elias Church in Damascus and described plans for further attacks aimed at inflaming sectarian tensions and undermining Syria’s new government, Syria’s Interior Ministry has said.
In news releases carried by the Syrian Arab News Agency, the ministry said the group sought to exploit the security vacuum that followed the fall of the Assad regime by moving fighters from the Syrian desert into urban areas, establishing sleeper cells and seizing weapons and explosives from abandoned stockpiles.
The attack on Mar Elias Church in Damascus’ Al-Dweilaa neighborhood on June 22, 2025, killed 25 civilians and wounded 63 others.
In recorded confessions released by the ministry and reported by SANA, detainees said that Daesh had planned to attack the church by opening fire on worshippers before detonating an explosive vest. They also described a separate plot targeting the Sayyida Zainab shrine, which was later postponed because of heightened security measures.
One detainee, identified as Abd Al-Ilah Al-Jumaili, said that he joined Daesh in 2017 and transported two operatives from Al-Nabk in the Damascus countryside to the capital. He later learned that one of them had been assigned to carry out the church bombing.
Another detainee, identified as Abu Waqqas, said a Daesh operative known as Abu Mujahid had outlined the plan to attack Mar Elias Church. A suspect identified as Khaled Abu Aisha had previously been assigned to surveil the church, according to the Interior Ministry.
Deputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Abdul Qader Tahan said that Daesh had primarily targeted revolutionary and opposition factions before Syria’s liberation, with about 99 percent of its operations directed against those groups. He said that the group later changed its strategy after military factions were integrated into the Ministry of Defense and state security institutions were rebuilt.
Daesh then turned to targeting members of different religious communities, including Christians and Shiite Muslims, in an effort to inflame sectarian tensions and erode public confidence in the new authorities, Tahan said.
A Counterterrorism Directorate officer said that the group deliberately targeted places of worship associated with different religious communities to deepen divisions and weaken Syria’s emerging institutions. He said that the church bombing was carried out by an operative who was unable to refuse orders.
The officer added that Daesh had also established military and security commanders in its provincial branches to select targets and plan attacks against government institutions and civilians.
According to the Interior Ministry, security forces have arrested about 1,300 suspected Daesh members, including senior leaders, and dismantled 34 cells in recent months. Authorities have also disrupted the group’s financing networks and dismantled cells involved in attacks on Syrian state institutions, including an assault on a customs patrol between Idlib and Aleppo.
Other cells linked to assassination operations along Syria’s coast have also been dismantled, SANA quoted the ministry as saying.
Abdul Rahman Khadra, director of the Interior Ministry’s Moral Guidance Directorate, said Daesh ideology was rooted in violence and sought to destroy Syria’s social fabric by targeting civilians, security personnel and religious communities.
He said that the Syrian state remained committed to protecting all communities and safeguarding religious events and places of worship.
Survivors and relatives of victims of the Mar Elias Church bombing recounted its aftermath and called for justice, saying attempts to incite sectarian strife would not undermine Syria’s longstanding social cohesion.
The Interior Ministry said in June 2025 that it had arrested the leader of the Daesh cell responsible for the church bombing, along with five other members involved in the attack.
File photo showing Syrian security forces during an operation targeting the ISIS cell involved in the Mar Elias Church bombing in Damascus. (Syria’s Interior Ministry handout / via SANA))
