AT LEAST 25 people were killed and 63 wounded as a suicide bomber opened fire at worshippers in a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus on Sunday night before blowing himself up.

The attack took place in Dweil’a on the outskirts of Damascus inside the Mar Elias church. Priest Meletius Shahati said there was a second gunman, who has not been mentioned by authorities.

Syrian Interior Ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba said the bomber is suspected to be aligned with the Islamic State (Isis) group, though it did not initially claim the atrocity.

Syria’s Christian minority came under repeated attack from Islamist rebel groups during Syria’s civil war, with killings and displacement into the refugee diaspora reducing the country’s Christian population from 1.5 million (about 10 per cent of the total) to about 300,000 (2 per cent) between 2011 and 2022. The biggest drops in Christian populations occurred in cities ruled for periods by jihadist rebels, including Aleppo and Idlib.

Syria’s President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former fighter with the al-Qaida and al-Nusra terrorist groups, both of which have a record of targeting Syrian Christians, has insisted his government will protect the country’s religious minorities, though he has also declared that Islamic sharia will be the basis of the formerly secular country’s legal system and ruled Idlib in the period its Christians were driven out.

Christians and Alawites were the main victims of militia killings of about 1,000 people in the coastal area near Latakia in March, which followed clashes with fighters loyal to ousted president Bashar al-Assad.