At least one US serviceman killed in Jordan air base shooting

At least one US servicemember was killed outside a Jordanian training facility on Friday, a US defense official said, after the Jordanian army reported two US trainers were dead.

“One US servicemember was killed and two others were critically injured just after noon local time in Jordan as they approached the gate to a training facility,” the official said. “The wounded servicemembers were medevaced to King Hussein Hospital in Amman.”

The shooting took place at the gate of the Al-Jafr base when the car carrying the US trainers failed to stop, the Jordanian army said, adding that a Jordanian officer was also wounded.

The incident comes almost a year after a Jordanian policeman shot dead two US instructors, a South African and two Jordanians at a police training center east of Amman, before being gunned down.

Washington said at the time that the two Americans killed in that attack were employees of the private firm DynCorp, contracted by the State Department to train Palestinian forces.

Mary Lawrence, a spokeswoman for DynCorp International, said the firm’s employees had all been accounted for after Friday’s shooting and none had been wounded.