ISIS New Year's Eve attacks on churches, social gatherings foiled in Syria
Syria’s Interior Ministry says it thwarted a terror plot by the Islamic State to attack civilian gatherings and churches on New Year’s Eve and bolstered protections for houses of worship.
The ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it had information that Islamic State jihadis were planning “suicide operations and attacks targeting New Year’s celebrations in a number of governorates, particularly the city of Aleppo, by targeting churches and civilian gathering spots,” reports AFP.
A security officer was killed and two others were wounded by a suspected Islamic State terrorist in Aleppo’s Bab al-Faraj neighborhood after an officer became suspicious of the man, who then opened fire and blew himself up during an attempted arrest, the ministry stated.
“We took heightened security measures as part of a preemptive response, including strengthening protection around churches, deploying fixed and mobile patrols, and setting up checkpoints across the city,” the ministry said, according to the Turkish state-run news outlet Anadolu Agency.
The new Syrian government claims the actions of its agents played a large part in preventing a major terror attack on civilians. The government rose to power under the leadership of President Ahmed al-Sharaa following the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
The foiled plot comes just months after Syria's Christian community suffered its deadliest attack since the 1860 Damascus Massacre, when over two dozen people were killed by a bombing at the Mar Elias Church in Damascus. Advocates say the June attack serves as a reminder of "Christianity's increasingly perilous existence in its ancient homeland."
Sharaa’s administration has faced questions from rights advocates about how it will protect Christians and religious minorities, given the president’s previous leadership in al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Al-Nusra Front. Sharaa has since distanced himself from the group and has taken steps to align Syria with U.S. regional objectives.
Syria joined the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State in November. The Islamic State is a radical Islamic jihadi organization that conquered large chunks of territory across Syria and Iraq in the mid-2010s before being militarily defeated by the U.S.-led coalition. Other chapters of the Islamic State have formed across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In areas under Islamic State control, thousands of religious minorities have been killed or forced into sexual slavery.
Concerns emerged last year that Islamic State fighters were regrouping in Syria and Iraq by exploiting security gaps to launch attacks. Military sources sounded the alarm that the Islamic State was activating sleeper cells and bolstering recruiting amid reduced U.S. military presence in the region.
In November, before Sharaa’s historic meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, Syrian security forces launched 61 raids nationwide in which 71 suspected Islamic State operatives were detained.
Authorities in Germany say they also foiled a terror plot targeting civilians this holiday season, announcing the arrest of three Moroccans, an Egyptian and a Syrian with “Islamist motives” who wanted to attack a Christmas market in the Bavarian state, BBC reports.
Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told the German newspaper Bild the "excellent cooperation between our security services" prevented "a potentially Islamist-motivated attack.”
In Turkey, authorities claim to have arrested 357 suspects tied to an operation against the Islamic State. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on a Turkish social media platform that raids were carried out in 21 provinces, according to Anadolu.
