AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan said on Tuesday that its airstrikes in southern Syria the night before killed more than 20 Islamic State militants, in an operation it linked to last week’s deadly attack on a church in Jordan.
Government Communication Minister Mohammed al-Momani gave the toll on Tuesday, according to Reuters. In a post on X, Momani said Jordan regretted the civilian casualties from the strikes. Syria put the civilian toll at seven dead, among them three children and a woman.
Jordan’s air force hit what it called militant hideouts in southern Syria on Monday. Officials in Amman said the suspects behind the church attack, which killed nine people, had ties to terrorist groups based across the border.
The casualty figures have not been independently verified. No group has claimed responsibility for the church attack, and Islamic State has not claimed it either. Jordan says the men targeted in Syria belonged to Islamic State.
There is also a dispute over how the strikes were carried out. Jordan’s military said the operation was coordinated with Damascus. Syria’s government said the opposite — that the strikes came without prior coordination — and said it had opened an investigation.
Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty. Even so, the ministry said Damascus was coordinating with Amman and that the two sides would set up a joint security committee to tighten border security and stop a repeat.
Back in Jordan, security officials said two brothers and their brother-in-law had been arrested after a shootout in the investigation into the church attack. Reuters reported that earlier Jordanian statements, that the church attack had not been planned in advance, sit awkwardly with the reason Amman gave for striking across the border.
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