Mideast governments condemn Syria church bombing as death toll jumps to 25
Mideast governments condemn Syria church bombing as death toll jumps to 25 (Image: AP)
DAMASCUS: The death toll from an attack on a church in Syria has gone up to 25, state media said Monday.
The attack Sunday on the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox church during a Divine Liturgy in Dweil'a near Damascus was the first of its kind in Syria in years, and comes as Damascus under its de facto Islamist rule is trying to win the support of minorities.
As President Ahmad al-Sharaa struggles to exert authority across the country, there have been concerns about the presence of sleeper cells of extremist groups in the war-torn country.
The ministry and most witnesses said a gunman entered the church, and started firing at the people there before detonating his explosive vest.
SANA, citing the Health Ministry, said 63 other people were wounded in the attack. Father Fadi Ghattas told The Associated Press after the attack that some 350 people were praying at the church.
The United States, the European Union and governments across the Middle East condemned the attack, decrying it as a terrorist attack.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but the Syrian Interior Minister has blamed the extremist Islamic State group.
Since the toppling of Bashar Assad and his family's decades-long dictatorial rule of Syria last December in a lightning insurgency, al-Sharaa has been pushing to win the support of Syria's non-Sunni-Muslim minority groups who are concerned about life under Islamist rule.
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Business Standard
an hour ago
- Business Standard
Iran's nuclear dreams may survive even a devastating American blow
President Trump declared a 'spectacular military success,' saying that American bombs had knocked out key pillars of Iran's nuclear program. Even if he is right, the operation may not have delivered a death blow to a program that is deeply embedded in Iran's history, culture, sense of security, and national identity. Since Iran first embarked on an ambitious civilian nuclear program in 1974 under the shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran's leaders have viewed it as a proud symbol of the country's leadership in the Muslim world, a reflection of its commitment to scientific research, and an insurance policy in its dangerous neighborhood. What was true under the shah has been true under the theocratic rulers of post-revolution Iran. And it would be true, several experts on Iran said, of any potential future Iranian government, even if the current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, does not survive an escalating conflict with Israel and the United States. 'In the short term, under immense pressure, Khamenei or his successors will have to make concessions,' said Roham Alvandi, director of the Iranian History Initiative at the London School of Economics. 'In the long run, any Iranian leader will come to the conclusion that Iran must have a nuclear deterrent.' By joining Israel's military campaign against Iran, Trump has greatly raised the costs for Iran's leaders in refusing to accept stringent curbs on their uranium enrichment program. Yet however this conflict ends, he may have given them even more compelling reasons to seek a nuclear deterrent, experts say. 'Any strategic thinker in Iran, present or future, realizes that Iran is located in the Middle East, that its neighbors are Netanyahu's Israel, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and M.B.S. in Saudi Arabia,' said Professor Alvandi, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. To that list of threats, Iran can now add the United States. 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Flush with cash from 1973 oil shock, the shah then opted to rapidly expand Iran's civil nuclear program, including developing a homegrown enriching capacity. He sent dozens of Iranian students to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study nuclear engineering. The shah viewed it as a prestige project that would vault Iran into the front ranks of Middle Eastern countries. But that put him at odds with the United States, which worried that Iran would reprocess spent fuel into fissile material that could be used in a weapon. 'It was an icon of the country having arrived as a major power, with the side idea that if Iraq ever threatened Iran, it could be diverted to military uses,' said Professor Alvandi, who published 'Nixon, Kissinger and the Shah: The United States and Iran in the Cold War.' The shah even said that Iran would have nuclear weapons 'without a doubt and sooner than one would think,' a statement he later disavowed. Henry A. Kissinger, then the secretary of state, sought to impose safeguards on Iran's program, which the shah rejected. As a result, France and Germany, rather than the United States, won lucrative contracts to build Iran's industry. German companies began constructing the Bushehr nuclear power plant in 1975, a project that was halted after the Iranian revolution in 1979. Iran's new rulers initially viewed the nuclear program as a wasteful extravagance on the shah's part. They mothballed it until the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, when Iraq's repeated bombing of the Bushehr plant, not to mention its use of chemical weapons in the conflict, persuaded the Iranians that a robust nuclear program would have a useful deterrent value. (Bushehr, rebuilt by the Russians, is still running.) 'In some ways, the Islamic Republic's calculations were the same as the shah's — an expression of power and prestige,' said Ray Takeyh, an expert on Iran at the Council on Foreign Relations. The nuclear program became inseparable from the government's rabid nationalism, the cudgel behind daily state-organized protests with their cries of 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel.' In 2006, during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was turned into almost a fetish. Dancers held vials said to contain some form of uranium in performances celebrating Iran's right to enrich. The program operated on an aggressively dual track: a civilian program, which contributed little to Iran's energy needs, and a covert enrichment program, which put Iran on a collision course with Israel and the United States. The decades of investment in, and veneration of, the program will make it hard for any leader of Iran to simply give it up, say analysts. Even among Iranians who are angry at the government or pay little attention to calculations about strategic deterrence, the nuclear program has become a source of national pride. 'A successor regime, whoever it is and however it comes to power, will have similar view' about pursuing the country's nuclear ambitions, said Takeyh, who is the author, most recently of 'The Last Shah: America, Iran and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty.' 'It will emphasize nuclear science as the highest form of scientific inquiry,' he said. 'It will seek to have a nuclear program of some elaboration and indigenously driven.' The question, Takeyh said, is whether 'it is going to be more acceptable to the US, as the shah's ambitions were, to some extent.' For now, said Abbas Milani, the director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, 'Khamenei faces an existential double bind.' 'He can heed his own rhetoric and the advice of those radicals in his inner circle,' Professor Milani said, which would mean trying to shut down the Straits of Hormuz and retaliating against American ships and bases in the region. Or he can publicly play down the damage to the nuclear facilities and seek an accommodation with the United States, thus 'saving his regime to fight another day.' 'The innocent people of Iran will pay a heavy price either way,' Professor Milani said.
India.com
an hour ago
- India.com
Pakistan army chief Asim Munir leaked location of Iran's top commander to..., claim reports, gave smartwatch..., secretly met...
(Image: @NUQTA31) New Delhi: In the war between Israel and Iran, Pakistan is trying to show support to Iran by repeatedly making statements against Israel, but according to Iranian sources, Pakistan has stabbed Iran in the back. The name of Pakistani Army Chief and Field Marshal Asim Munir has surfaced in the murder of Iran's top commander Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, who was killed on June 13. He is accused of sharing the commander's location with America and Israel. Asim Munir's 'double game' Iranian sources claim that Pakistan is playing a double game in the war between Iran and Israel, it wants to maintain relations with both Iran and the West. Sources claim that before the murder of Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, Asim Munir met him at the end of May and also gifted him a smartwatch. Iranian media says that this smartwatch had a GPS tracker, which gave the Israeli army the location of Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, due to which it was able to attack him accurately. Two deputies of Mohammad Hussain Bakri were also killed in the attack on June 13. Asim Munir secretly met Donald Trump Sources also say that after meeting Mohammad Hussain Bakri, Asim Munir also secretly met US President Donald Trump. The conflict between Iran and Israel has been going on for about 10 days. According to the Iranian Health Ministry, more than 400 Iranian citizens have lost their lives in Israeli attacks so far, while 3,500 people have been injured. The dead also include top commanders of the Iranian army and nuclear scientists. On June 13, the Israeli army attacked Iran. It says that this step was taken to stop Iran from making nuclear weapons. After the attack, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu had said that Iran is rapidly working on the nuclear programme and will make 10,000 ballistic missiles in three years. Expressing concern, he said what would happen if Iran fired these missiles on small Israel.
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Bengal girl killed in Kaliganj bomb blast on bypoll result day, Amit Malviya slams Mamata: ‘Is this price of victory?'
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