The SDF denies the authenticity of the Syrian Interior Ministry’s statement regarding the perpetrators of the Church bombing
The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) categorically denied the claims made by the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior in the Damascus government, Noureddine al Baba, regarding the identities of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on the Mar Elias Church in the Dwel’a neighborhood of Damascus.
The Syrian Ministry of Interior claimed that the perpetrators came from Hawl camp and were non-Syrians, a claim the SDF described as inaccurate and not based on any real information.
An official statement issued by the SDF media center stated that investigations and inquiries conducted by its security forces didn’t yield any evidence indicating that non-Syrians had left Hawl camp recently.
The statement clarified that all those leaving the camp were handed over either to the Syrian government upon an official request, or to the Iraqi government as part of coordinated deportations to Jad’ah camp in Iraq.
The SDF confirmed that Hawl camp houses mostly women and children from the families of ISIS fighters and isn’t used to directly house foreign terrorists.
Therefore, the claim that the perpetrators of the attack left the camp is baseless.
The statement added that the Syria Democratic Forces, which defeated ISIS in the 2019 battle of Baghouz, are continuing their operations in cooperation with the international coalition forces to fight terrorism, and are ready to expand these operations when necessary.
At the end of the statement, the SDF expressed its condolences to the victims of the attack, calling on the Damascus government to conduct a fair and transparent investigation and publish its results to the public, as an essential step to prevent the recurrence of such attacks in the future.
A suicide attack targeted the Mar Elias Church in the Dwel’a neighborhood last Sunday, where the attacker opened fire on worshippers inside the church before detonating himself, resulting in deaths and injuries, according to the Syrian Civil Defense and local sources.
