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Vehicle bomb kills Jordanian troops at Syria border

Jordan sealed the area on Tuesday, after a vehicle bomb attack launched from the Ruqban area killed six Jordanian troops and wounded 14.

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More than 50,000 Syrian refugees are stranded in that border area.

The Jordanian Armed Forces gave a statement shortly following the attack, which they said took place on the Syrian side of the border, at around 5:30 a.m., across from a refugee camp located in Rukban.

In November, a Jordanian police captain opened fire on instructors at an worldwide police training center in the capital, Amman, killing five people, including two Americans, before being shot dead by security forces.

King Abdullah II of Jordan visited the General Headquarters of the Jordan Armed Forces, where he met with top civil, military and security officials.

In a rare move, the Jordanian army’s chief of staff declared the northern and northeastern border strip with Syria a closed military zone, an order that went into effect immediately.

“We join the Jordanian people in their resilience and determination in the face of this cowardly terrorist act”.

It is not yet clear who carried out the assault, but the Daesh group has threatened in the past to “break down” Jordan’s borders.

The attack has shaken Jordan, a tightly run kingdom which has been relatively unscathed by the instability and violence that has overwhelmed its neighbours Iraq and Syria.

Jordan is a staunch ally of the United States and is taking part in the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State in Syria, where the jihadist group still controls large areas of territory including much of the east. The rest of the border is heavily guarded by patrols and drones.

Jordan is one of the most active Arab members of the anti-ISIS coalition carrying out airstrikes on the terror group’s targets in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

“We are also not building nor expanding any existing refugee camps”.

“The funding focuses on the millions of out-of-camp refugees living in towns and cities in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon”.

Instead, “we will be discussing ways through which we can send aid to the people on the other side of the border”, he said, adding that details would be worked out by the United Nations refugee agency and the Jordanian military.

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“Water is the most important thing”, said the husband.

Jordanian soldiers killed in bomb attack at Syria border