At least eight people were killed and 18 injured in an explosion at the Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib Mosque in Homs, Syria's state news agency reported.
Quoting a security source, Sana said “explosive devices were planted inside the mosque”.
Security teams cordoned off the area, south of Homs city, while authorities began investigations. A local security official told Sana that the identity of the perpetrators and any affiliation to violent groups were still unknown.
However, the attack was claimed by an Islamist militant group called Saraya Ansar Al Sunnah in a statement posted on Telegram. The group said its fighters “detonated a number of explosive devices” in the mosque, and that the attack was aimed at Alawites, using a derogatory term to refer to the minority sect of former president Bashar Al Assad, who was overthrown in December last year.
The group also claimed responsibility for a church bombing in Damascus in June that killed 25 people, though authorities blamed the extremist group ISIS. The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the bombing in Homs was part of “repeated desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and sow chaos among the Syrian people”.
“Syria reiterates its firm stance in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the ministry said. “Remnants of the former regime, ISIS militants and collaborators have converged on a single goal: obstructing the path of the new state by undermining stability, threatening civil peace, and eroding the shared coexistence and common destiny of Syrians throughout history,” the Syrian Minister of Information, Hamza Al Mustafa, said in a post on X.
Several Arab states, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon, strongly condemned the attack. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reaffirmed “Lebanon’s support for Syria in its fight against terrorism”.
Homs was the scene of heavy sectarian violence during Syria's civil war, which began in 2011. The bombing in Wadi Al Dhahab comes as the Syrian government and the US increase operations against ISIS.
The US launched large-scale strikes in Syria last weekend, after two US soldiers and an interpreter were killed in Palmyra by a gunman said to be a renegade member of the security forces who was affiliated with ISIS. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the strikes attacked “ISIS fighters, infrastructure and weapons sites”.
On Thursday, Syrian authorities announced that security forces, with the support of a US-led coalition, had arrested the ISIS leader for Damascus in an operation to the south-west of the capital.
Syria has been rocked by several episodes of sectarian violence since rebels led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham toppled the regime of Mr Al Assad. Hundreds of Alawites, including civilians, were killed in the community's coastal heartland during clashes between troops affiliated with the new government and what authorities described as loyalists of the former regime.
In July, fighting broke out in the southern province of Sweida, home of the minority Druze community.
