A church bombing leads Syria's Christians to consider leaving as foreign fighters remain

DAMASCUS, Syria — The day after last month's deadly suicide attack on a church outside Syria's capital, hundreds of Christians marched in Damascus chanting against foreign fighters and calling for them to leave the country.

The June 22 attack on the Mar Elias church, killing at least 25 people and wounding dozens, was the latest alarm for religious minorities who say they have suffered one blow after another since President Bashar Assad was removed from power in December.

Muslim militant groups led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which is headed by Syria's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, now control much of the country. While the new government has condemned attacks on minorities, many accuse it of looking the other way or being unable to control the armed groups it is trying to absorb.

Among the groups are thousands of foreign fighters, who often hold a more extreme Islamic ideology than many of their Syrian counterparts. In a highly unusual move, al-Sharaa early on promoted a half-dozen foreign fighters to ranks as high as brigadier general.

How Syria's new leaders address the treatment of minorities, and the presence of foreign fighters, is being closely watched by the United States and others moving to lift long-standing sanctions on the country.

Fears of a mass Christian exodus

Syria's top Greek Orthodox religious authority has called the church bombing the worst crime against Christians in Damascus since 1860, when thousands were massacred within days by Muslim attackers.

Two weeks after the church attack, it is not clear who was behind it. The government blamed the extremist Islamic State group, which did not claim responsibility as it usually does. A little-known group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna said a member carried out the attack, but the government called the group merely a cover for IS.

Al-Sharaa vowed that those behind the bombing will be brought to justice and called for national unity against ''injustice and crime.''

But many Christians in Syria were angered by what they saw as an inadequate government response, especially as officials did not describe the dead as ''martyrs,'' apparently depriving them of the honorific reference because they were not Muslims.

The attack has raised fears of a mass exodus of Christians similar to what happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the rise of sectarian violence.

''I love Syria and would love to stay here, but let's hope that they don't force us to leave,'' said Kameel Sabbagh, who stayed in Syria throughout the conflict that began in 2011 when Assad cracked down on anti-government protests and morphed into a civil war. The years of chaos included the rise of IS in Syria, whose sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks.

Hundreds of thousands of Christians did leave during the civil war during multiple attacks on Christians by mostly Muslim militants, including the kidnapping of nuns and priests and destruction of churches. Some priests estimate a third of Christians left.

''We are a main component in this country and we are staying,'' Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch John X Yazigi said during the funeral for the church bombing victims, in an apparent reference to concerns that Christians will be forced to leave.

Islamization of Syria

Christians made up about 10% of Syria's prewar population of 23 million, enjoying freedom of worship under the Assad government and some high government posts.

Initially, many Christians were willing to give the new authorities a chance.

In a nationwide survey conducted in May by local research group Etana, 85% of Sunnis said they felt safe under the current authorities, compared with 21% of Alawites and 18% of Druze. Militant groups have been blamed for revenge killings against members of Assad's Alawite sect in March and clashes with Druze fighters weeks later.

Christians fell in the middle in the survey, with 45%.

But now, ''the size of fear has increased among Christians,'' said politician Ayman Abdel Nour, who recently met with religious leaders. He said they told him that many Christians might decide that leaving the country is the only solution.

The attack came as Christians noticed growing signs of Islamization.

In some Christian neighborhoods, Muslim missionaries have marched through the streets with loudspeakers calling on people to convert to Islam. Last month, Syrian authorities said women should wear the all-encompassing burkini for swimming except in upscale resorts. Bearded gunmen beat up men and women partying at nightclubs in Damascus.

Today, Social Affairs Minister Hind Kabawat is the only Christian, and only woman, out of 23 cabinet ministers.

One Christian who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns said he had applied to immigrate to Canada or Australia.

Many foreign fighters could stay

The Interior Ministry has said the church attacker was not Syrian and had been living in al-Hol camp in the northeast, where thousands of family members of IS fighters have been held since the extremists' defeat in 2019.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control the camp, however, said their investigation showed that the attacker did not come from al-Hol.

Days later, dozens of Syrian Christians marched near the attack site chanting ''Syria is free, terrorists out.''

During the civil war, tens of thousands of Sunni Muslim fighters from more than 80 countries came to take part in battles against Assad, who was backed by regional Shiite power Iran, Tehran's proxies and Russia. They played an instrumental role in ending 54 years of Assad family rule, seeing their fight as a holy war.

Days after Assad's fall, al-Sharaa thanked six foreign fighters by promoting them to the ranks of colonel and brigadier general, including ones from Egypt and Jordan as well as the Albanian Abdul Samrez Jashari, designated as a terrorist by the U.S. in 2016 for his affiliation with al-Qaida's branch in Syria.

Among the groups enjoying wide influence in post-Assad Syria are the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria, who are mostly Chinese Muslims; Junud al-Sham, mostly ethnic Chechen gunmen; and Ajnad al-Qawqaz, mostly Muslim fighters from the former Soviet Union.

Al-Sharaa has said many foreign fighters are now married to Syrian women and could end up getting citizenship, and has given no indication whether any of the fighters will be asked to leave the country.

Recon Geopolitics, a Beirut-based research center, warned last month in a study on foreign fighters in Syria that the situation could get worse, with founder Firas al-Shoufi saying ''time is not on Syria's side."

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Mroue reported from Beirut.