I was en route from Damascus to Beirut on June 22 when the news began lighting up my phone—messages from friends, notifications, headlines. A bomb had exploded at Mar Elias Church in Damascus during Sunday liturgy, killing twenty-five and injuring dozens more. The moment I saw the target, I knew this wasn’t just a tragic security breach. It was something more deliberate, a calculated political message. The symbolic targeting of a minority place of worship suggests strategic intent: to fracture communal trust, to challenge the legitimacy of the transitional government, and to signal that no community is off limits. The sequence of recent attacks against Alawites, then Druze, and now Christians reveals a disturbing trend in Syria—and this attack on a Christian church marks an escalation. The perpetrators are sending a message, not only to religious minorities but also to Syria’s cosmopolitan and urban communities: everyone is vulnerable. The attack raises urgent questions about who controls security in a post-Bashar al-Assad Syria, and whether any community can rely on protection under a new government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly of militant opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). For the United States and its allies, it’s a warning about the fragility of the transition, and a call to reassess how to support stability.
Dispatch from Damascus: Church attack shows transition’s fragility – Atlantic Council
