Homs mosque blast: Syria says IS commander arrested

Syrian authorities said Tuesday they arrested a senior Islamic State group commander accused of involvement in a December 2025 mosque bombing in Homs that killed at least eight people.

The interior ministry identified the arrested man as Khaled Raed Bayrouni, also known as Abu Hassan Doshka. It said he was the senior IS “military commander” in the Homs area and accused him of planning and overseeing attacks in the provincial capital.

The ministry said those attacks included preparing and using explosive devices, sectarian attacks and the bombing of the Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib mosque in Homs. It said Bayrouni was arrested in the Damascus countryside and that investigations into his activities were continuing.

Syrian authorities said in January that they had arrested two IS members accused of being behind the mosque bombing.

Authorities have blamed IS for the attack, while the bombing was claimed by the little-known Sunni extremist group Saraya Ansar al-Sunna. Experts cited by AFP say Saraya Ansar al-Sunna serves as a front for IS.

The Homs attack sparked mass protests by the Alawite community after sectarian massacres in the minority's coastal heartland in March 2025.

IS lost its territorial control in Syria in 2019, but remnants remain in the country, especially in the desert. Syria's new Islamist authorities, who ousted Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, regularly announce arrests of IS commanders or members and joined a US-led coalition against the group last year.