Mosque bombing in Syria leaves 8 dead and 18 wounded

IDLIB, Syria (AP) — A bombing at a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs during Friday prayers killed at least eight people and wounded 18 others, authorities said, as long-standing sectarian, ethnic and political fault lines continue to destabilize the country, even as large-scale fighting has subsided.

Images released by Syria’s state-run Arab News Agency showed blood on the mosque’s carpets, holes in the walls, shattered windows and fire damage. The Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib Mosque is located in Homs, Syria's third-largest city, in an area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood dominated by the Alawite minority.

SANA, citing a security source, said that preliminary investigations indicate that explosive devices were planted inside the mosque. Authorities were searching for the perpetrators, who have not yet been identified, and a security cordon was placed around the building, Syria’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

A little-known group calling itself Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on its Telegram channel. The same group had previously claimed a suicide attack in June in which a gunman opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest inside a Greek Orthodox church in Dweil’a, on the outskirts of Damascus, killing 25 people as worshippers prayed on a Sunday.

The Syrian government blamed the church attack on a cell of the Islamic State group, saying IS had also planned to target a Shiite Muslim shrine. IS did not claim responsibility for the attack. The group follows an extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam and considers Shiites to be infidels.

Syria recently joined the global coalition against IS and has launched a crackdown on IS cells, particularly after an attack on U.S. forces earlier this month that killed two service members and a civilian translator.

The country has experienced several waves of sectarian clashes since the fall of President Bashar Assad last year. Assad, himself an Alawite, fled the country to Russia. Members of his sect have been subjected to crackdowns.

In March, an ambush carried out by Assad’s supporters against security forces triggered days of violence that left hundreds of people dead, most of them Alawites.

In a statement, the Supreme Alawite Islamic Council in Syria and the Diaspora described the attack as “a continuation of the organized extremist terrorism specifically targeting the Alawite community, and increasingly other Syrian groups as well.”

The council held the Syrian government “fully and directly responsible for these crimes,” adding that “these criminal acts will not go unanswered.”

Local officials condemned Friday's attack, saying it came “within the context of repeated desperate attempts to undermine security and stability and sow chaos among the Syrian people.”

“Syria reiterates its firm stance in combating terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs added in a statement.

“Remnants of the former regime, IS militants and collaborators have converged on a single goal: obstructing the path of the new state by undermining stability, threatening civil peace, and eroding the shared coexistence and common destiny of Syrians throughout history,” the Syrian information minister said in a post on X.

The mosque’s deputy imam — a religious official who helps lead prayers — told Syria’s state-run Al-Ikhbariyah television that worshippers were praying when they “heard a loud explosion that knocked us to the ground. Fire broke out in one corner of the mosque. Those of us who were not wounded rushed to help get the injured out. Within minutes, general security forces and the Red Crescent arrived.”

“The explosion was huge,” he said. “It shattered the mosque’s windows and caused a fire that burned copies of the Holy Quran.”

Neighboring countries, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon, also condemned the attack. In a statement, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reaffirmed “Lebanon’s support for Syria in its fight against terrorism.”

On Monday, clashes erupted intermittently between Syrian government forces and Kurdish-led fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces, in mixed neighborhoods in the northern city of Aleppo, forcing temporary closures of schools and public institutions and prompting civilians to shelter indoors. A late-evening ceasefire was then announced by both sides amid ongoing de-escalation efforts.

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Abou Aljoud contributed from Beirut.

Syrian security forces inspect the damage after an explosion in the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood in Homs, Syria Friday, Dec. 26, 2025.(AP Photo)

Syrian security forces secure the area outside the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in the predominantly Alawite Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood after an explosion inside the mosque, in Homs, Syria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2025. (AP Photo)

Syrian security forces inspect the damage after an explosion in the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood in Homs, Syria Friday, Dec. 26, 2025.(AP Photo)

Syrian security forces inspect the damage after an explosion in the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood in Homs, Syria Friday, Dec. 26, 2025.(AP Photo)

Syrian security forces inspect the damage after an explosion in the Imam Ali bin Abi Talib Mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood in Homs, Syria Friday, Dec. 26, 2025.(AP Photo)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend.

Zelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday's talks, and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90% ready.”

An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”

The Ukrainian side will also raise "territorial issues", he said.

Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved," but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.

“We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.

The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy's comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.

“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue," he said.

Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia's all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.

On the ground, one person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.

Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.

“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.

Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple the Ukraine's power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a media conference at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)