Jihadists Are Massacring Syria’s Christians

On Sunday, a suicide bomber entered the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus, opened fire, and proceeded to detonate an explosive vest. He killed at least 25 worshippers, including children. Over 60 others were severely injured. It was the deadliest attack on Syria’s Christian minority in years, and a devastating reminder for all of Syria’s religious minorities that the fall of the brutal Assad regime hasn’t ended their nightmare.

Syrian officials have blamed Islamic State (ISIS), which – though officially defeated – remains alive through sleeper cells. ISIS has not claimed responsibility, leading to questions whether it was truly behind the bombing. But regardless of the perpetrator, the method and target align with a long, documented pattern of jihadist violence against religious minorities in Syria. In addition to the church bombing, planned attacks on Shiite shrines and public spaces were reportedly thwarted.

The bombing stirred memories of ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliphate, which from 2014 to 2019 imposed an explicitly genocidal regime across parts of Syria and Iraq. Then, Christians were given ultimatums: convert to Islam, pay a punitive tax known as a jizya, flee or be executed. Crosses were torn down, churches destroyed and clergy murdered. In cities like Raqqa, many Christians who didn’t escape were either forced to convert or were tortured, kidnapped or killed.

Christians were not ISIS’s only targets. Yazidis were systematically murdered and enslaved. Yazidi women were raped en masse. Shiite Muslims, Druze and Ismailis were branded heretics and hunted. ISIS fighters recorded their massacres and turned their genocide into monstrous propaganda. Now, five years after the fall of ISIS, its ideology is creeping back into Syria.