Jordan’s King Abdullah orders firm response after deadly church attack

Authorities are still searching for the attackers and say it is too early to determine if they had ties to known groups. Jordan’s King Abdullah has ordered security forces to respond firmly and pursue those behind a church attack in the Karak governorate that killed eight people and wounded 40, the royal court has said. The country has already increased security across malls, foreign embassies and other locations across the country in response to the attack, according to the US embassy in Amman, as authorities continue to search for the perpetrators. On Friday, assailants fired for several minutes in broad daylight during a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate, about 120km (75 miles) southwest of the capital, Amman, in what Jordanian authorities described as an “act of extremist terrorism”.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, as Jordan declared three days of national mourning, according to the kingdom’s Petra News Agency. King Abdullah, a US partner in the fight against violent armed groups in the region, visited Karak hours after the attack and said the perpetrators would be punished “with an iron fist”. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan said on X that the attack was “a result of a terrorist ideology and blind extremism”. “We will not allow society to go down this path,” he added. Authorities said