Jordan court charges 21 with terrorism

A Jordanian court on Sunday charged 21 people with carrying out “terrorist acts” after their arrest in an operation against jihadists in the country’s north in March, a prosecutor said.

The State Security Court accused them of committing “terrorist acts that led to deaths,” making explosives and possessing weapons, the official Petra news agency quoted the court’s chief prosecutor as saying.

The agency did not say when their trial would begin.

In March, Jordan announced it had foiled a plot by the Islamic State jihadist group to carry out attacks in the kingdom in an operation in the city of Irbid.

Syrian refugees look through the gate of a grocery store at the al-Azraq refugee camp in northeast Jordan, April 14, 2016. (AP/Sam McNeil)

IS had being planning to target “civilian and military sites,” the authorities said, adding seven jihadists were killed and around 20 arrested in the operation.

Two deadly attacks targeting security forces rocked the kingdom this month.

On Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed seven soldiers in an area where thousands of Syrian refugees are stranded near the Syrian border.

The bombing came two weeks after a gunman, who was later arrested, killed five Jordanian intelligence officers in a Palestinian refugee camp north of the capital.

Jordan is part of the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.