Jordan acknowledges civilian deaths in Syria strikes as Damascus disputes coordination

Jordan has acknowledged that civilians were killed in its air strikes on southern Syria on Monday evening, while Syria says it received no warning of the operation. Jordan estimates that more than 20 Islamic State (IS) fighters also died, but the two governments give conflicting accounts of whether the raids were coordinated.

The strikes followed a shooting at a funeral in a Greek Orthodox church in Jordan’s Karak province on Friday that killed nine people. Jordan’s military said the attackers had ties to the organisations it targeted in Syria, though its initial statement named no group and gave no death toll. On Tuesday, government spokesman Mohammad Momani said an initial operational assessment put the number of IS fighters killed at more than 20. He also said a major IS weapons depot had been destroyed.

Syrian emergency services said crews had recovered seven bodies, including those of three children, from four sites hit by the strikes and had helped three injured people. The service’s director said the count was provisional. In the village of Al-Tuff, Masoud al-Salim told the Associated Press that his wife, son and three grandchildren had been killed when a strike hit his home. The Syrian count concerns recovered civilians; it is not a competing tally of the fighters Jordan says it killed.

Jordan says the operation was coordinated with Damascus. Syria says there was no prior coordination or notification, although it has since opened direct contact with Jordan and begun an investigation. Jordan says it regrets the civilian deaths and is working with Syrian authorities to investigate them.

The claimed link to the church shooting also remains unresolved. Earlier on Monday, Jordan’s interior minister said investigators had found no indication *at that point* that the three arrested suspects were linked to other cells. Those remarks do not rule out later findings, but Jordan has not explained the basis for the military’s subsequent claim that the attackers were connected to the groups it struck in Syria.