Gunmen Attack Christian Town In Syria, Wounding Woman & Smashing Shops

Via The Cradle

Gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Christian town of Suqaylabiyah in the Hama countryside in Syria on Saturday, smashing shops and opening fire on residents, the Syrian Justice Archive (SJA) reported.

Armed men coming from the nearby Sunni town of Qalaat al-Madiq attacked Christian-owned shops and opened fire on residents with Kalashnikov rifles, wounding a woman on Al-Mashwar Road.

The Syrian government’s General Security forces reportedly allowed the armed men to pass through their checkpoints to enter Suqaylabiyah and did not intervene to stop the violence.

Instead, they launched an arrest campaign against local men who gathered to defend the town with sticks and knives. They arrested two local Christian men, Shadi Nassab and Amjad Lyous.
Meanwhile, Al-Ghab District Director Mohammad al-Attal told SANA that Internal Security Forces responded to the scene, brought the situation under control, and restored calm to the city.

Father Fadi Sankari of Saints Peter and Paul Church in Suqaylabiyah issued a statement on Facebook condemning the attacks and calling on residents to defend one another. “My dear children, what is happening in our parish today is unacceptable and condemned, and no one has the right to enter your homes or threaten your security and dignity,” Sankari wrote.

“We don’t want chaos, and we don’t want revenge, but we also won’t accept that our people live in fear, or that the tragedy of destruction we’ve known before repeats itself,” he added.

He called on Syrian authorities to protect the town. “Your responsibility is to protect people, not to stand by watching fear and assault; and loose weapons cannot be a substitute for the rule of law.”

Dozens of gunmen carried out a similar attack on Suqaylabiyah in March after an altercation broke out between local young men and young men from Qalaat al-Madiq. The fighting began after the young men from Qalaat al-Madiq began harassing two local women, causing the local young men to intervene.

Today, October 3, Christians in Syria were once again subjected to violence and attacks against their people and property. Islamist mobs attacked Christians and their property in Al-Suqaylabiyah, in the heart of Syria’s historic Orthodox Christian presence, with members of the General Security participating in the attack instead of protecting the community. This is what Syria’s Christians are enduring today: attacks on people, homes, businesses, churches, and communities that have existed on this land for centuries. What happened today is not something that should pass unnoticed. It must be documented, those responsible must be held accountable, and the involvement of security forces must be investigated. Syria’s Christians are not guests in Syria. This is their ancestral homeland.

— Greco-Levantines World Wide (@GrecoLevantines) October 3, 2026

Shortly after the altercation was broken up, five youths from Qalaat al-Madiq arrived, armed with sticks and knives, and began breaking and smashing shops. They were soon joined by dozens of other armed men who beat residents with sticks and opened fire with weapons at shops, restaurants, and cafes.

General Security personnel refrained from intervening or, at times, accompanied groups of the attackers.

Saturday’s attack on Suqaylabiyah comes days after the brutal killing of eight Alawite men from the town of Al-Fahel in the Hama countryside.

Gunmen opened fire on the men as they traveled by bus near the town of Masyaf on 30 September. All passengers on the bus were engineers and workers from Al-Mateen Company.

In January 2025, Sunni-extremist gunmen linked to Syria’s new government massacred 16 Alawite men in Al-Fahel during a raid and search of the village.

Two months later, on March 7 2025, Sunni extremists and government security forces carried out a massacre across dozens of locations on the Syrian coast, killing over 1,600 Alawite civilians. The same groups carried out a similar massacre of Druze in Suwayda governorate in July of the same year.

Destruction of a Virgin Mary statue and looting of Christian-owned shops in Al-Suqaylabiyah by groups affiliated with transitional authorities in the “New Syria”. https://t.co/yxjqDKbtoy

— ☧ Milad ܝܠܕܐ (@PalCatholic) March 27, 2026

Religious minorities from the Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities have been regularly targeted by Sunni extremists linked to Syrian security forces since Syria’s new government took power in October 2024.

The new government in Damascus is led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former leader of Al-Qaeda in Syria who enjoys strong backing from the US, UK, and Turkey.

Sharaa and members of his previous armed group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), are Sunni extremists who believe that Christians should be discriminated against and that Alawites and Druze should be killed and their property taken, according to the teachings of the medieval religious scholar Ibn Taymiyyah.