Jordan says its airstrikes killed more than 20 Islamic State militants in Syria, and Syria says seven civilians died

Jordan carried the Karak church attack across the border on Monday night, and by Tuesday morning Amman and Damascus were telling two different stories about the same strikes.

Government Communication Minister Mohammed al-Momani said Jordanian jets killed more than 20 Islamic State militants in southern Syria on Monday evening. Jordan says it struck militant hideouts after its investigators linked the suspects in last week's church attack, which killed nine people, to terrorist groups operating in that area. Security officials said Jordanian forces arrested three men, two brothers and their brother in law, after a shootout over the church killings. No group has claimed the church attack, and Islamic State has not claimed it either.

Syria counted the dead differently. Damascus said the Jordanian strikes killed seven people, including three children and a woman, as of October 27. Syria's foreign ministry condemned the strikes as a violation of Syrian sovereignty. Momani posted on X that Jordan regrets the civilian casualties. Syria also closed the Nassib crossing, the only border point between the two countries that carries both passengers and cargo, and suspended traffic in both directions.

The two governments also dispute whether they worked together. The Jordanian armed forces said the operation ran in coordination with Damascus. Syria's government said the jets struck without coordination and that it has opened an investigation. Both sides said on Tuesday that they are coordinating now and will form a joint security committee to police the border and stop a repeat. Reuters pointed at a further tangle: Jordanian authorities said in recent days that the church attack showed no sign of prior planning, a statement that sits oddly beside the case Amman made for striking preplanned militant hideouts across the border.

Jordan buried the Karak dead last week, and survivors have described gunmen who followed an extremist ideology and opened fire inside a church. Amman's answer has now opened a second front in the same story, a cross border air campaign against men Jordan blames for the attack, with Syria burying civilians of its own and the only road between the two countries shut.