Jordanian security forces on Monday arrested three suspects over an attack on a church last week that killed nine people, with the trio wounded in a dawn raid and shootout, authorities said.
The kingdom’s Public Security Directorate said the group were apprehended at an abandoned house where they had barricaded themselves inside and opened fire on security forces.
One of the suspects was taken to hospital in critical condition, while the other two were stable, Jordan’s state broadcaster Al-Mamlaka reported.
There were no casualties among security forces, it added.
On Friday, gunmen stormed the compound of the Greek Orthodox St George’s Church in the village of Hammoud in Karak governorate during a funeral procession, authorities said.
Karak is home to a significant Christian community in Muslim-majority Jordan, where Christians make up between two and three per cent of the population.
“Specialised investigation and raid teams apprehended the three terrorists responsible for the cowardly terrorist attack,” Al-Mamlaka said on X on Monday.
The Public Security Directorate said the three suspects had “refused to surrender and opened fire on the security forces”.
‘We will show them’
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said in a post on X that security forces “chased them to the very end”.
“We vowed the terrorists would not escape punishment, and no proponent of dark ideologies that divide Jordanians will be tolerated,” he wrote.
Earlier, the king visited the injured victims of the church attack in hospital, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a pistol on his hip.
“We will show them,” he vowed.
Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya told Al-Mamlaka on Monday that the attackers were all Jordanians and “had been holed up in a building in one of the villages near the site of the attack”.
“There is no indication of any external contacts or collaboration with foreign parties,” he said.
Government communications minister Mohammad al-Momani said “we stand ready and will strike with an iron fist, without mercy or leniency, against anyone who attempts to undermine Jordan’s security”.
Under Jordanian law, murder is punishable by death by hanging.
On Friday, Prime Minister Jafar Hassan ordered a three-day period of national mourning for the victims of the church attack, with flags to be flown at half-mast over government and public institutions.
Eight of the nine victims were laid to rest on Sunday next to the church in a funeral that drew a huge crowd amid a large security presence, AFP images showed.
The ninth person, Mohammed al-Qasous, will be buried on Monday, his family said.
On Saturday, officials at the church were digging a mass grave that was set to become a memorial.