Military drill scaled down to just Jordan and US

Only Jordan and the United States are to take part in this year’s Eager Lion military exercise, commanders said on Sunday, compared with the 18 nations which participated last year.

A total of 6,000 troops will undertake 10 days of maneuvers in the kingdom — 3,000 from each country and including special forces as well as air, ground and naval forces, Brigadier General Ralph Groover says.

Jordan’s Brigadier General Fahd al-Damen says nothing should be read into the absence of other participating countries this year.

“This exercise was from the outset a bilateral event but in recent years we organized multilateral maneuvers at the request of other countries,” he tells a news conference.

— AFP