Jordan has declared its border regions with Syria and Iraq to be closed military zones after a suicide bombing on Tuesday that killed six soldiers.
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Judeh said about 100,000 people have crossed the border from Syria to Jordan and denied terror group has penetrated the refugee camps. We commend Jordan for the tremendous sacrifices they have made in hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees.
“There still needs to be more clarity as to what happened”, Helene Daubelcour, senior external relations officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said.
For their part, the ambassadors of the P5 of the UN Security Council, the European Union and UN organisations working in Jordan, condemned the attack, stressing their solidarity with the Kingdom as it rises to face terrorism.
Aid agencies are anxious about security for humanitarian staff working to deliver aid at the border camp, and for the fate of the thousands stuck there, nearly half of them women and children.
King Abdullah II condemned the attack and vowed to “strike with an iron fist whoever assaults or attempts to harm it or its borders”. He said: “Jordan will respond with an iron fist against anyone who tries to tamper with its security and borders”.
“We wish to express our honest condolences and sympathy to the victims’ families, the Government and the people of Jordan”, it said.
“As pressure increases on Daesh in its strongholds of Falluhah and Raqqa it resorts to its old style attacks, whether they are lone acts or suicide bombs in order to compensate for the losses it incurred”, said Mahmoud Irdaisat, a retired major general.
As always, the United States stands together with Jordan.
Jordan is a member of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Jordan’s information minister Mohammed Momani said: “It reached our side of the border and ended up exploding with the driver inside”.
The kingdom already hosts more than 655,000 Syrian refugees, out of more than 4.8 million who have fled a brutal civil war, now in its sixth year.
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Their presence has placed a massive strain on Jordan’s economy and resources, and raised security concerns. The assailant, said to have previous ties to Islamic militant groups, was arrested several hours later.
