Speaking at a press conference in Karak, Major General Abdallah al-Maaytah said most of those wounded in the shooting at the Hamoud Church in Karak were still receiving treatment, and that the hunt for the attackers was ongoing

International News via Reuters:

Seven people were killed and 34 injured on Friday when gunmen opened fire during a funeral at a church in Jordan’s Karak governorate, said the head of the country’s Public Security Directorate, in a rare attack on the country’s Christian minority authorities described as a terrorist act carried out by extremists.

Speaking at a press conference in Karak, Major General Abdallah al-Maaytah said most of those wounded in the shooting at the Hamoud Church in Karak were still receiving treatment, and that the hunt for the attackers was ongoing. 

Interior Minister Mazin Al Farrayeh said the attack had been carried out by “extremists”, but that it was too early to tell whether they had any links to known groups either inside or outside Jordan.  

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. 

A video aired on Jordan’s state-owned Al-Mamlaka television station that appeared to be from a security camera mounted on the church showed three people firing at it from a sidewalk and hiding behind trees and a low wall. The video showed the attackers then running towards the church’s entrance. Reuters was able to verify the video from the entry path and wall surrounding the church, as well as other details.  

Khaled Burqan, who was at the funeral, told Al-Mamlaka that dozens of people were present and that the gunmen opened fire on them for several minutes.

Ihab Ammareen, another witness, told the station that he saw bloodied people collapse on the floor after the attack. “People were crying, wailing, screaming — it’s hard to describe,” he told the station. 

BLOOD SMEARED ON THE GROUND

Jordan’s King Abdullah visited Karak hours after the attack and said the perpetrators would be punished “with an iron fist”.

“The terrorist attack against Karak will be met with the harshest retaliation. Those who delude themselves into thinking that they can divide Jordanians with their bullets have no chance in the face of our unity,” he said in a statement. 

Reuters footage from the church after the attack showed blood smeared on the floor near its entrance, where security forces were deployed. 

People who gathered at a Karak government hospital to support the wounded expressed shock.

“What happened today has left people unable to speak or raise our voices. But our only reproach to the state is that it must investigate these dark ideas — where they come from and how they enter the minds of our children,” said one of them, Hani Al-Mbaydeen.

Such attacks are extremely rare in Jordan, which is relatively stable, though Jordanian authorities say they have repeatedly foiled attempted attacks by Islamist militants in recent years. 

Christians make up a minority of Jordan’s population. The country is home to several biblical sites that attract Christian pilgrims from around the world. 

Jordan’s Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs Mohammad Khalayleh and several members of Jordan’s parliament condemned the attack in comments to Al-Mamlaka.  

The US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz described it in a post on X as a “depraved and brutal attack on a house of worship.”

Jordan was among the US allies in the region to be hit by Iranian attacks this year after the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran in February.  

Reporting by Maya Gebeily and Eman Abouhassira and Enas Alashray; Additional writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Aidan Lewis, David Gaffen

The outbreak has now been reported in four countries across eastern, central and western Africa, giving it the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date

International News via Reuters:

Health officials across Africa are racing to determine how Nigeria’s first Ebola patient in more than a decade became infected, amid fears the outbreak could spread further after reaching a fourth African country.

The Swiss government said on Friday the patient in Nigeria, the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in Abuja, had not travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak was first detected in mid-May before spreading to Uganda, Kenya and now Nigeria.

The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said the woman was believed to have contracted Ebola while travelling with her husband in Uganda, which the World Health Organization declared Ebola-free in August.

The outbreak has now been reported in four countries across eastern, central and western Africa, giving it the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date.

The possibility that the Nigerian patient became infected in Uganda, where officials say she spent a two-week holiday before returning to Abuja, has fuelled concerns about undetected transmission in a country where the outbreak had appeared to be under control.

Ugandan authorities have said the woman had been in eastern Congo before transiting through Uganda, but both the WHO and Africa’s top health body say that information has yet to be confirmed.

The WHO said investigations were continuing to establish the source of the infection. Nigerian authorities tested the woman for Ebola 13 days after she fell ill in Abuja.

NIGERIA AND KENYA CASES LEFT UGANDA ON SAME DAY

One theory under investigation is that the Nigerian patient may have contracted the virus from Kenya’s first confirmed Ebola patient, who also flew from Uganda’s Entebbe airport on the same day in early October.

The Kenyan patient died two days later in a Nairobi hospital.

Experts have cautioned against drawing firm conclusions, saying that Ebola is spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects.

“I think that is very speculative unless there is evidence of sharing the same space in a manner that could explain that,” said Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist and member of the WHO’s Ebola emergency committee. 

“Random presence at the same location, a large airport, is not a supported epidemiological link by any standard of what we currently know.”

The WHO’s Kenya representative, Neema Rusibamayila Kimambo, said it could be coincidental that the two patients left Entebbe airport on October 3.

“Among the contacts that we even have here in country, even all those who are on the plane with this (Kenyan) patient and all airport staff, we have not had any infections in that group,” said Kimambo.

UGANDA HAS NOT REPORTED EBOLA CASES SINCE JUNE

Uganda reported 20 Ebola cases in May and June, most of them imported from Congo, but has not detected a case since June.

Ugandan government spokesperson Alan Kasujja told Reuters on Thursday that Uganda had no Ebola cases and would make any such information public. He could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Ebola has infected nearly 10,000 people and killed more than 4,600 in Congo. The disease can cause fever, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, internal and external bleeding. Only people with symptoms can transmit the virus.

The rare Ebola species behind the current outbreak has no approved treatment or vaccine.

Reporting by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Ammu Kannampilly.Additional reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin in Geneva, Jennifer Rigby in London and Ayen Deng Bior in Dakar.Writing by Ayen Deng Bior and Alexander Winning. Editing by Xevi Fontdegloria and Mark Potter

Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee told a news conference after a ministerial meeting in Dublin that all EU members were determined the Commission should continue dialogue with Beijing

International News via Reuters:

The European Union should focus on dialogue with Beijing to curb imports of products such as chemicals and machinery to rein in a damaging trade deficit with China, EU ministers said on Friday, as the bloc considers import quotas for plastics.

European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic earlier this month agreed with Beijing for the EU to cut imports of hybrid vehicles from China by more than half to address a deficit that has swelled to more than €1 billion ($1.12 billion) a day, and to support Europe’s struggling carmakers.

Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee told a news conference after a ministerial meeting in Dublin that all EU members were determined the Commission should continue dialogue with Beijing 

“There’s a very clear desire for us to move beyond that (hybrid cars) and to look at other areas, chemicals, machinery. There’s a number of issues, agrifood sector, and areas that have been mentioned,” she said.

She added that, while dialogue was the priority, the Commission could use existing trade defence tools itself to resolve some imbalances.

Sefcovic told the news conference he had heard every trade minister’s views on which sectors should be the next priorities for trade measures.

PLASTICS SAFEGUARDS NEXT IN LINE

He continued that an investigation into safeguards for plastics appeared to be the next to be launched.

“Currently, I think the plastics sector is the closest,” he said. “We are looking into whether all the requirements to launch an investigation are in place.” 

He appeared to be referring to a request for measures to curb imports of PET, the plastic widely used in packaging, which lawyers told Reuters earlier this month had been submitted.

China needs foreign buyers for the flood of relatively cheap state-subsidised goods its own shoppers can’t absorb, and the EU is torn between welcoming those imports to ease living costs and keeping them out to rebuild its own factories.

The EU’s goods trade deficit swelled to more than €370 billion ($414.25 billion) in 2025 and is on course to break well past €400 billion this year, a situation European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called “unsustainable”.

European industry says the export surge, dubbed China Shock 2.0, is already causing factory closures and job losses, most notably the 100,000 positions set to go at Volkswagen. 

China has said in the past it is not the root cause of the EU’s problems, but a partner in solving them. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this week there were growing concerns for chemicals and machinery. Lithuania Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys said on Friday that pharmaceuticals could also be included.

France’s junior minister for trade, Nicolas Forissier, said dialogue was only possible now that the EU was speaking as one.  

Chinese authorities “understand when you are clear, when you speak frankly, when you are firm on your positions,” he said. 

($1 = 0.8914 euros)

Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Alexandra Hudson