Syria and Jordan clash over deadly air strikes in southern Syria

Syria and Jordan have publicly contradicted each other over Jordanian air strikes on southern Syria on Monday evening, as images of civilians killed in the attacks fuelled public anger in the affected provinces.

Jordan's armed forces said the strikes hit "dens of terrorist organisations in southern Syria" and killed more than 20 ISIL (ISIS) fighters. Amman described the operation as retaliation for an attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Jordan that ISIL claimed, and said it was carried out in coordination with authorities in Damascus.

Damascus rejected that account. Syria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had informed Jordan of its "complete reservation" and that the strikes took place "without prior coordination or notification with the Syrian side". An official called them "treacherous".

Church attack triggered the strikes

The church attack last week killed nine people and wounded at least 34 others in the village of Hamoud in the Karak governorate, about 120km (75 miles) southwest of Amman. Jordanian authorities called it the work of "extremist terrorists" and arrested three men connected to it on Monday. King Abdullah II promised to respond with an "iron fist".

Sean Yom, an expert on Jordan at Temple University in the United States, told Al Jazeera that targeting a Christian minority in the tribal heartland of Karak created immediate pressure for results. "Because of its unprecedented nature, explicitly targeting a protected Christian minority in the tribal heartland of Karak, the government instantly felt popular demands to show results from the investigation and arrest of the perpetrators," he said.

Civilian deaths

Images spread in Syria the next day of a slain grandmother and her three grandchildren, killed by a strike on a tent in the village of al-Taff, in the Lajat area of northeastern Deraa province. Syria's civil defence said three other family members were wounded. In the al-Shayah farms near Nassib, in the Deraa countryside, an 80-year-old man named Riyad Karrad was also killed. Another man, Mutlaq Abu al-Khalil, 60, was killed in Shuhayb, in Suwayda's northern countryside.

Syria's customs authorities closed the Nassib border crossing with Jordan on Tuesday, before reopening it to passenger and commercial traffic on Wednesday.

A strain, not a rupture

Jordan has launched several air strikes on Syria since 2023, saying they generally target arms or drug smugglers. At times those strikes have killed civilians, including a January 2024 attack that Human Rights Watch said killed women and children. Under former President Bashar al-Assad, southern Syria became a site of cross-border drug smuggling, including the stimulant captagon; some of those operations are believed to have continued after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

Relations between Amman and Damascus have been lukewarm but slowly improving since the regime's fall. Navvar Saban, a researcher in security and military affairs at the Arab Center for Contemporary Syrian Studies, told Al Jazeera that "both governments have something to defend politically". He added: "My expectation is that this is a serious strain rather than a rupture."

Syria's Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty, but indicated relations with Amman would continue to be strengthened. It said Damascus is coordinating with Amman to establish a joint security committee to strengthen border security and prevent similar incidents.

Source: Al Jazeera.