Jordan just suffered a mass shooting at a church and nobody has been caught
1 hour ago · 25 October 2026Share
A Greek Orthodox church near the Baptism site of Christ at the Jordan river in Jordan. Hogshine · CC0
Gunmen just killed nine people at a church in Jordan.
And two days later, nobody's been caught.
Here's what happened. Three men pulled up by car at a funeral in the village of Hamoud, in Karak, about 120 kilometres south of Amman. Two walked in carrying what looked like pistols. A third followed with what looked like a semiautomatic rifle.
Between 150 and 200 mourners were in and around the church.
First count was seven dead, 34 wounded. That was two days ago. Over the next day, the number climbed. Eight. Then nine. One of the wounded died from their injuries.
Now the wounded count stands at 40. Two are in critical condition. A day after the attack, 27 of them were still in hospital.
Nasser al-Burqan was there. He's a lawyer. He told Reuters a gunman stood about two metres from him and just started shooting. His son was shot in the leg.
So who did this? Nobody knows.
No group has said it did this. Jordan's authorities say it's too early to tell if the gunmen are linked to anyone, inside the country or outside it. They haven't been caught. We don't even know how many there were for certain — some witnesses say three, some say four.
King Abdullah II called it an attack on the whole country, not just its Christians.
He says quote "we will strike those who transgress against this country with an iron fist."
The rest of this story is for members.
Karak Qasabah District, Jordan. File photo. Adeeb Atwan · CC BY 3.0
That's the King promising a harsh response before anyone's even been caught.
Jafar Hassan, Jordan's Prime Minister, says quote "a terrorist ideology and blind extremism" is behind it. Mazen al-Faraya, the Interior Minister, called it unprecedented. He said it was carried out by people with no relationship to humanity. He didn't name a group.
One government official has gone further, saying the attackers followed extremist takfiri ideology. That's one outlet's reporting. Nobody else has confirmed it yet.
Jordan has declared three days of national mourning. Security has gone up at malls, foreign embassies and other sites across the country, according to the US embassy in Amman.
Karak has a small Christian community. Christians make up around 300,000 people out of Jordan's population of 11.5 million.
And this isn't the first time Karak has been hit. Back in 2016, ISIL gunmen attacked a Crusader-era castle there. They killed ten people, including a Canadian tourist, before Jordanian forces shot them dead.
So here's the bigger picture. Jordan has mostly stayed out of the fighting spreading across the Middle East. But it borders Israel, Iraq and Syria. And this happened while tensions between America and Iran stay high, and while Israeli forces keep working in the West Bank.
Jordan hasn't blamed any outside country or group. Officials have given no sign this is connected to those wider conflicts.
António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, called the attack especially heinous, according to his office. Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem called it vile and cowardly.
Two days on, the big questions are still open. Who are the gunmen? How many were there? Where did they get the weapons? Are they still in the country?
Jordan has promised an iron fist. It still hasn't said who that fist is aimed at.
Nothing here was paid for by an advertiser. Members are the entire business model. Bronze is where it starts, and it opens the last seven days in full.
