Three Gunmen Kill Nine at St. George's Church in Karak, Jordan

Forty people sustained injuries when three gunmen opened fire at a funeral service in Jordan on Friday, a toll that health officials confirmed alongside nine deaths. The violence occurred at St. George's Greek Orthodox church in the town of Hamoud, located within the Karak governorate.

Maj. Gen. Abdallah al-Maaytah, head of the Public Security Directorate, stated that the search for the attackers was ongoing as most wounded patients received treatment. Interior Minister Mazin Al Farrayeh labeled the incident the work of "extremists" but noted it was premature to determine if the shooters had ties to specific organizations inside or outside the country. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Video footage verified by Reuters and aired on state television Al-Mamlaka showed the three shooters firing from a pavement. They sheltered behind trees and a low wall before running toward the church entrance. Witness accounts described the chaos that followed the initial burst of gunfire.

Priest Theodoros Soueiss told attendees to get down as panic spread through the congregation. "The gunfire was indiscriminate, and you never knew where a bullet might land," Soueiss said. Khaled Burqan, a funeral attendee, reported that the gunmen fired for several minutes while dozens of people were present. Ihab Ammareen, another witness, described seeing bloodied individuals collapse on the floor while others cried and screamed.

Prime Minister Jafar Hassan described the attack on social media as the result of "a result of a terrorist ideology and blind extremism." King Abdullah visited Karak within hours of the shooting. He vowed that the perpetrators would be punished "with an iron fist" and asserted that those attempting to divide Jordanians with bullets have no chance against national unity.

The U.S. embassy in Amman announced on Saturday that security measures had been increased at malls, foreign embassies, and other locations across Jordan. United Nations Secretary General António Guterres condemned the violence as unacceptable. Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, described the event as a "depraved and brutal attack on a house of worship."

Hani Al-Mbaydeen, standing outside a government hospital in Karak where families gathered to support the wounded, questioned how such "dark ideas" enter the minds of young people. The country, which hosts several biblical pilgrimage sites, experienced the attack despite being considered relatively stable. U.S. authorities have stated they have foiled multiple attempted attacks by Islamist militants in recent years.