By Gloria Ogbonna
Deadly bombings targeted mosques in both Syria and Nigeria this week, leaving dozens of worshippers dead or wounded in coordinated acts of terror designed to inflict maximum casualties. In both countries, the attacks were deliberately carried out during prayer services, a time when mosques are filled with civilians, underscoring the brutality and symbolism behind the violence.
In Syria, a powerful explosion tore through the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque in the central city of Homs on Friday, killing at least eight people and injuring 18 others, according to local officials.
The mosque serves members of the Alawite community and is located in a predominantly Alawite neighborhood, making the attack especially alarming amid the country’s fragile post-war political climate.
The Alawites are a minority sect within Shiite Islam that rose to political dominance under former Syrian presidents Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, both of whom belonged to the sect. Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, many Alawites have expressed growing fears of persecution and retaliatory violence.
Some elements within Syria’s new governing structure have accused Alawite communities of harboring loyalty to the former regime and conspiring to destabilize the new government.
Syrian state media aired graphic images from inside the mosque following the attack, showing bloodstained prayer carpets, shattered windows, and walls torn open by the blast. Debris littered the prayer hall, with religious books and fragments scattered across the floor.
According to Al Jazeera News, security officials said the explosion appeared to have originated in a corner of the main prayer hall, leaving a small crater in the wall and scorching the surrounding area—signs consistent with a suicide bombing carried out inside the building.
Government officials swiftly condemned the attack, describing it as part of a broader campaign to destabilize the country during a sensitive transition period. Syria’s information ministry accused a mix of hostile forces of working toward the same goal.
“Remnants of the former regime, ISIS militants, and their collaborators have converged on a single objective: obstructing the path of the new state by undermining security, threatening civil peace, and eroding the shared coexistence and common destiny of Syrians throughout history,” the ministry said in a statement.
The New York Times reported that responsibility for the Homs bombing was claimed on social media by Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah (SAS), a group believed to be a splinter faction of the Islamic State. SAS has previously claimed responsibility for other high-profile attacks, including a devastating suicide bombing at a church in Damascus in June that killed 25 people. In its statement on Friday, the group said it carried out the Homs attack in cooperation with “jihadists from another group.”
Counterterrorism experts say SAS was once part of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the powerful alliance of insurgents and jihadist factions that helped depose Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 and later installed its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, as interim president. SAS reportedly broke away from HTS after accusing it of being too lenient toward captured Assad-era officials and too tolerant of religious communities outside the group’s strict interpretation of Islam.
Thousands of miles away in West Africa, another deadly blast struck a mosque in northeastern Nigeria. On Wednesday night, a bomb exploded at the Al-Adum mosque in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, killing at least five people and injuring 35 others. The explosion occurred during evening prayers, once again maximizing the number of victims.
An eyewitness told Reuters that confusion and fear spread quickly after the blast. “Nobody knows what happened. It was during prayers that the bomb exploded. Allah has destined that this will happen, but nobody can give details of how it happened,” the witness said.
Police in Borno State later confirmed that they recovered fragments believed to be from a suicide vest at the scene, strengthening suspicions that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. Security forces conducted a sweep of the surrounding market area to search for possible secondary explosive devices, though none were reportedly found.
Nigeria has long struggled with violent Islamist insurgencies, particularly in its northeastern region. The group most notorious for carrying out suicide bombings is Boko Haram, which has terrorized the region for more than a decade. Boko Haram—whose name loosely translates to “Western education is forbidden”—gained international attention in April 2014 after kidnapping nearly 300 schoolgirls from Chibok, an atrocity that sparked global outrage and criticism of both the Nigerian government and the Obama administration’s response.
In the years that followed, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to the Islamic State but later fractured due to internal leadership disputes. From that split emerged the Islamic State–West Africa Province (ISWAP), which has since become a formidable and deadly force in the region.
Together, Boko Haram and ISWAP are believed to have killed at least 40,000 people and displaced more than two million since 2009 in their campaign to establish an Islamic “caliphate” across parts of northeastern Nigeria and neighboring areas of Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.
Maiduguri was once the epicenter of this violence, enduring near-daily attacks at the height of the insurgency, though the city had experienced relative calm since 2021—making this week’s bombing a grim reminder that the threat has not disappeared.
The near-simultaneous attacks in Syria and Nigeria highlight the persistent danger posed by extremist groups and the continued targeting of religious spaces, even as communities gather peacefully for prayer.
Source Breitbart
Original article
Comments