Daesh has claimed responsibility for a fatal bomb attack that targeted a military post in Jordan near the border with Syria last week.
Advertisement
It gave no further details. Amaq posted a statement that said a “source” had informed it that the suicide mission “was carried out by one of the fighters of the Islamic State”, calling the base “American-Jordan”.
It sealed off the border, cutting off about 70,000 Syrian refugees stranded in the area from global aid delivery.
Hours after the attack, Jordan declared the northeastern and northern borders closed military zones and King Abdullah vowed to hit back “with an iron fist” against any group that sought to harm the country’s security or borders. An orange ball of fire rises in the air, followed by a cloud of thick black smoke and the sound of an explosion.
Rights groups such as Amnesty International have urged Jordan not to take a tough security response.
Jordanian government spokesperson Mohammed Momani tells AP, “It’s an worldwide and a United Nations problem, and not a Jordanian one.Jordan is willing to help, but the berm [an earthen barrier] is closed”.
The nearest well is 50 km from the refugee camp at al-Rukban, and when water is brought there it is sold at prices beyond the reach of residents, the monitoring group said. “It will not affect Jordan’s determination to eliminate it”, the statement read.
Jordanian analyst Saad Hattar said the two attacks laid bare Jordan’s vulnerability.
“The fate of this gang is either Jordanian jail or being killed”, the statement also said.
But now 64,000 Syrian refugees seeking sanctuary are stranded in the desert without food and with a meager water supply.
They “constitute a wake-up call to the government to stand up and not to underestimate the threat of this unsafe organization”, he said.
Advertisement
This story has been corrected to show that the name of the website is “Hala Akhbar”, not “Hala Akbar”.
