Jordan closes northern border area after deadly bombing

The Jordanian army Tuesday declared the northern and northeastern borders of the country as closed military zones hours after a car-bombing in the region killed six soldiers.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mashaal Mohammad Zaben issued the according to a sources in the Jordan Armed Forces, the Petra News Agency reported.

Any people or vehicles moving the area without permission will be “dealt with as enemy targets” the sources added.

The early morning car bomb outside a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan killed six soldiers in a remote desert area where hundreds have been held for screening for suspected jihadist links.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Jordan is part of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (IS) group in neighboring Syria and Iraq, and has been targeted by jihadists before.

The army said the bombing killed four border guards, one member of the security services and one member of the civil defense.

Fourteen soldiers were wounded in the attack, a security official told AFP, adding that the number of dead might rise.

The army said the bomb struck at 5:30 am (0230 GMT) in al-Roqban, on the Syrian border in the far northeast of the kingdom.

The military said it had destroyed several “enemy” vehicles at the border, without elaborating.

A security source said the vehicle used in the attack had crossed over from Syria and was moving at the time of the explosion, which suggests it was a suicide bombing.

Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh condemned the “cowardly attack.”

“Terrorists strike again this time against our border guard,” he tweeted on his official account. “This evil will be defeated.”

The US embassy in Amman denounced the attack and pledged “unwavering support” for the armed forces of its key ally.

“We join the Jordanian people in their resilience and determination in the face of this cowardly terrorist act. The United States stands together with Jordan,” it said.

The bombing comes two weeks after a gunman killed five Jordanian intelligence officers in a Palestinian refugee camp north of the capital.

A suspect was later arrested but details of the attack have been kept under a gag order while the investigation continues.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have sought shelter at two remote desert camps in the northeast — one at al-Roqban and another at Handalat further west.

A flare-up in the five-year civil war in Syria sparked a new influx of refugees in the area last month, with nearly 5,500 arriving at al-Roqban within days in early May.

IS fears

Jordanian authorities kept hundreds of refugees camped in no-man’s land outside al-Roqban waiting for screening, out of fear that they are involved with IS which controls swathes of eastern Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The kingdom’s refusal to allow the refugees to move further inside Jordanian territory has drawn criticism from the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

UNHCR representative Andrew Harper said he was not aware of any Syrian asylum-seekers being hurt in Tuesday’s attack.

Jordan says it is hosting nearly 1.4 million Syrian refugees, of whom 630,000 are registered with the United Nations.

The huge refugee presence has placed a massive strain on Jordan’s economy and resources, and raised security concerns in a country which has already experienced several jihadist attacks.

In December 2005, suicide bombings in three Amman hotels claimed by IS’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, killed 60 people and wounded dozens.

Jordan has carried out air strikes against IS in neighboring Syria since 2014.

One of its pilots was captured by the jihadists when his plane went down in Syria in December 2014. In February 2015, IS released gruesome footage of Maaz al-Kassasbeh being burned alive in a cage.

His murder prompted Jordan to extend its air strikes against IS to Iraq, where it is the only Arab coalition member participating in the bombing campaign.

Jordan has also opened up the Prince Hassan airbase, northeast of the capital, to other members of the US-led coalition taking part in the air war.

In March, Jordanian authorities announced they had foiled an IS plot to carry out attacks in the kingdom in an operation that led to the deaths of seven jihadists.

According to sources close to Islamists, almost 4,000 Jordanians have joined jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria, where an estimated 420 have been killed since 2011.