Saraya Ansar al-Sunna's Claims on the Homs Attack Against Alawites

Having generally been out of the news for months following the Mar Elias church bombing in late June, the jihadist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunna, which is pro-Islamic State and claims to have originated as a break-off from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, has come back to prominence by claiming that it carried out an attack against Alawites at the ‘Imam Ali bin Abi Talib’ mosque in Wadi al-Dhahab, located in Homs.

According to the head of Alawite insurgent group ‘The Men of Light’, the mosque belonged to the Alawite community. In that case, the mosque itself is an example of the way that some Alawites have made their religious practices resemble ‘mainstream Islam’ more closely. Notably, the mosque’s entrance features the reference to Ali with the phrase ‘peace be upon him’ rather than ‘may God be pleased with him’- the former being more common among Shi‘a and the latter more common among Sunnis. This suggests that the mosque at least originally belonged to an Alawite institution.

Regardless of who was using the mosque at the time of the attack, Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claims to have conducted the attack in order to target Alawites, whom the group regards as an ‘apostate’ sect with no right to life and property. Below are the group’s statements on the attack and its justifications.