State Department spokesman John Kirby says the Americans were among “several” people killed in the attack at the Jordan worldwide Police Training Center near Amman. “The captain was married and had two children, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the government has not released the assailant’s identity”, reports the Associated Press.
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No members of the USA military, who cycle through the training center, were involved in the shooting, the US official said.
The USA is working closely with Jordanian authorities and takes the killings “very seriously”, President Barack Obama said at the White House.
The shooter also wounded two Americans and four Jordanians, one of them critically, said the spokesman, Mohammed Momani.
Jordan, a long-time ally of the West, has served as a secure base for training Iraqi security forces since the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Zaid was the nephew of a former parliamentarian, Suleiman Saed. In an earlier statement, he referred to the shooting as a crime.
The American trainers were reported to be among the foreign military instructors on contract with the Jordanian police to train Jordanian, Palestinian and Lebanese security forces.
The motive for Monday’s attack was not immediately known, and an investigation is underway.
On Monday, King Abdullah II and his wife Queen Rania attended a memorial for the victims of the 2005 attacks.
There was no immediate comment from US officials.
The attack was carried out by 28-year-old Jordanian police captain Anwar Abu Zaid, according to media reports.
The embassy also posted on its website a message for USA citizens reporting a “security incident” at the police training centre and urging individuals “to please avoid that area for the time being”.
The State Department declined to provide numbers for how many USA contractors are working in Jordan on State Department contracts.
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“There is a need for both sides, especially in the intelligence field, for the transfer of information”, he said. “The one constant has been the close ties between the Central Intelligence Agency and the king and his government”, a retired US Middle East analyst told the newspaper.
