Also 2 Jordanians nationals were critically injured and later died, he said. As early as 2005, the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) had “surpassed Israel’s Mossad as America’s most effective allied counter-terrorism agency in the Middle East”, according to the Los Angeles Times.
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A USA official said the Americans who were killed and wounded in the attack were part of a State Department police training programme.
“There’s a huge reservoir of opposition” to the Syrian regime, Schenker said, along with a latent anti-Americanism that has grown since 2000, as U.S.-Jordan ties have intensified.
Momani said the Jordanian killed in the attack was a civilian employee at the center. Responsibility for those bombings was claimed by Al Qaeda in Iraq, a precursor organization to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Jordan itself has been seen as a relatively stable, pro-Western nation. Kirby said Jordanian officials have “offered their full support”.
Kirby, however, gave no additional details on the incident. Obama spoke during a meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose nation has a peace treaty with Jordan.
About two hours after the shooting, dozens of armoured vehicles were moving in and out of the large, walled training centre on the outskirts of Amman.
The Jordanian officer opened fire, killing the two Americans and a South African contractor before being shot dead, government spokesman Mohammed Momani said.
The gruesome murder sparked global condemnation and was described by a senior Jordanian official as a “turning point” in the kingdom’s fight against IS.
A US official said the two Americans were working for the U.S. State Department’s worldwide Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Bureau training Palestinian security forces.
Only one of the victims, a Jordanian translator who worked at the base, Kamal al-Malkawi, has been named.
The shooting sparked concern in Washington and was condemned by the U.S. embassy in Amman, which also urged its citizens to stay away from the area where the attack took place.
Since the civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, hundreds of Jordanians have joined Sunni Muslim militant groups in the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad, according to Islamists close to the subject. Jordan’s King Abdullah believes ISIL poses an existentialist threat to the kingdom.
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Earlier this year Jordan executed an Iraqi woman whose husband was one of the bombers. Rishawi was captured after her suicide belt failed to detonate. Over the past 12 years, it has churned out more than 50,000 Iraqi cops.
