Gunmen opened fire inside a Greek Orthodox church in southern Jordan on Friday, killing at least seven people and wounding 34 others in an attack Jordan's king called an act of terrorism.

The assault struck the village of Hammoud in the Karak governorate, about 110 miles south of Amman, during a funeral procession that had drawn an estimated 150 to 200 mourners, according to CBS News. Jordan's interior minister, Mazen Al-Faraya, said most of the dead and wounded were between 50 and 70 years old.

Footage aired by the state broadcaster Al-Mamlaka showed two gunmen in casual clothing stepping out of a vehicle with pistols drawn, before a third attacker armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic rifle joined them outside the church. A witness told the broadcaster the shooting continued for roughly five minutes before the attackers fled the scene.

A manhunt and a king's vow

Al-Faraya said "a group of extremists" carried out the shooting, and CNN reported that a manhunt for the gunmen was underway Friday evening, with authorities yet to confirm any arrests. The Public Security Directorate's early casualty count — six dead and 28 wounded — was revised upward as more victims were accounted for.

EVERY JORDANIAN LIFE IS PRECIOUS, AND WE WILL STRIKE WITH AN IRON FIST AGAINST THOSE WHO DARE TO THREATEN OUR NATION.

That was King Abdullah II's vow, posted to social media within hours of the attack, promising the "harshest retaliation" against those responsible, per Fox News. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun also condemned the shooting as a "heinous terrorist attack," saying terrorism "has no religion and no homeland."

Mohammed Al-Momani, Jordan's minister of government communications, said security forces were actively investigating the attack and had increased deployments at religious sites across the kingdom as a precaution. Jordanian officials have not released the identities of the attackers or publicly detailed a motive beyond Al-Faraya's description of "extremists."

Jordan is a majority Sunni Muslim kingdom with a long-established Christian minority, and attacks on churches there are rare. Karak itself has a bloody precedent: in 2016, gunmen killed 10 people, including seven police officers, in a rampage that included an assault on the city's Crusader-era castle; security forces killed the attackers after a lengthy standoff.

Condolences poured in from across the region Friday, with diplomats and foreign governments expressing solidarity with Jordan, a key U.S. and Western ally in a volatile corner of the Middle East. Funerals for Friday's victims — some of whom had already gathered to bury another member of their community when the gunmen struck — were expected to take place in Karak in the coming days.