Deadly explosion during Friday prayers in Syrian mosque

An explosion killed at least eight people and injured 18 others during Friday prayers at a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs, the Health Ministry said.

Photos from Syria’s official Sana news agency show the interior of the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque with black, burnt walls, broken windows and blood on the carpet.

Authorities believe an explosive detonated inside the building, Sana reports, citing a security source. While authorities are still searching for the perpetrators, the jihadist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah has claimed responsibility.

The mosque is in the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood, where most residents belong to the Alawite ethnoreligious group.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the “terrorist crime”, writing in a statement about that “this cowardly act constitutes a blatant attack against human and moral values” aimed at “undermining the security and stability” of the country.

Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, a Sunni extremist group, said it carried out the attack in collaboration with another unidentified group, using explosives planted at the site.

The group’s vague origins and opaque affiliations, which were revealed in June when it claimed responsibility for deadly bomb attack on church in Damascushave raised questions about its true connections and authenticity.

Some observers have speculated that it could be a front for the Islamic State (IS) group, given the similarity of their messages and the type of targets.

The latest assertion follows a months-long lull in attacks claimed by Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, which have largely taken the form of suspected targeted killings of minorities and what the group describes as “remnants” of the former Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

The explosion comes a year after Syrian rebel forces toppled Assad, an Alawite. This sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam whose members constitute one of the largest religious minorities in the country.

Since then, Syria has seen several waves of sectarian violence, with Alawites fearing reprisals and facing repression. Assad fled to Russia, an ally of his regime, where he and his family were granted asylum.

In March, security forces accused of killing dozens of Alawites in the coastal province of Latakia, the war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.

Additional reporting from BBC Monitoring