At least 22 people have been killed after a suicide bomber opened fire at a church in Syria – and then detonated an explosive vest.

This is the first such incident since Bashar al Assad was toppled in December, and officials claim the attacker was a member of Islamic State.

It happened at a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, with estimates suggesting that 350 worshippers were praying there at the time.

Witnesses said the perpetrator had his face covered when he began shooting – and blew himself up as crowds attempted to remove him from the building.

A security source told Reuters that two men were involved in the attack, with a priest saying he saw a second gunman at the entrance.

Officials say 63 people were injured, and children were among the casualties.

Syria’s information minister, Hamza Mostafa, condemned the terrorist attack – writing on X: “This cowardly act goes against the civic values that bring us together.

“We will not back down from our commitment to equal citizenship… and we also affirm the state’s pledge to exert all its efforts to combat criminal organisations.”

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Reports suggest that IS has attempted to attack several churches in Syria since Assad fell, but this is the first time they have succeeded.

Footage filmed by Syria’s civil defence, the White Helmets, showed scenes of destruction inside the church – including bloodied floors and shattered pews.

The Greek foreign ministry says it “unequivocally condemns the abhorrent terrorist suicide bombing”, and called on Syria “to guarantee the safety” of Christians with new measures.

A bride was shot dead on her wedding day in the south of France after she and her groom were targeted by hooded and armed attackers, according to local media.

The pair were leaving the party in a car along with a 13-year-old child when they were shot at, reports said.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation for “murder and attempted murder by an organised gang”.

The 27-year-old bride was fatally shot. One of the attackers was also killed after being struck by the bride and groom’s car as they tried to escape the ambush, French newspaper Le Figaro reports.

The incident reportedly happened in the village of Goult near the southeast French city of Avignon.

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Three people were injured: the groom, his sister and the 13-year-old child, Le Figaro reported.

Goult’s mayor Didier Perello said he believed the attack was “targeted”, adding that he was “angry, revolted, in shock”, in comments reported by the newspaper.

Stunning images showing distant parts of the universe – including one of a region situated thousands of light years from Earth – have been captured by a powerful new telescope.

The camera at the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile is expected to reveal new details from space on an unprecedented scale as it makes further observations during the next decade.

Scientists expect it to chart thousands of asteroids not previously identified – and believe it will discover within months whether there is a ninth planet in our solar system.

The new images show the light from millions of stars and galaxies in observations which took the world’s largest and most powerful camera only 10 hours to complete.

One image shows a mosaic of the Trifid and Lagoon nebulae, a star-forming region which is 9,000 light years from Earth.

A single light year is the distance light travels in 12 months. In space, it “zips through at 186,000 miles per second and 5.88 trillion miles per year”, says NASA.

Another image shows thousands of galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, in what scientists said offers just a “peek at the cosmos”.

The observatory is jointly funded by the National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the US government.

The foundation’s chief of staff Brian Stone told CNN the observatory “will capture more information about our universe than all optical telescopes throughout history combined”.

Rubin has been built on a mountain in the Andes, a region in central Chile which is also home to other observatories due to its dry air and dark skies.

The telescope’s work will “capture the cosmos in exquisite detail” as it repeatedly scans the sky for 10 years to “create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our universe”.

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Scientists in the UK will be working in partnership with the teams at Rubin to help process the detailed information and images captured by the telescope.

The National Science Foundation is expected to release more images and video from Rubin’s initial work later on Monday.