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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Jordan Tells Syria to Stop Violence 'Immediately'

2011-08-16

[An Nahar] Jordan urged Syria on Monday to "immediately" stop violence and start implementing reforms, as more than 2,000 people have been reported killed in a government crackdown on the pro-democracy revolt. "Prime Minister Maarouf Bakhit today telephoned his Syrian counterpart Adel Safar and told him that violence must stop immediately," the state-run Petra news agency reported. "Bakhit said Syria should listen to reason and start implementing reforms." Petra quoted the premier as saying that "world anger and rejection of the bloodshed in Syria are growing." "Military operations must stop to preserve Syria's unity and reforms should start to create a better future for the Syrian people," Bakhit said. "We in Jordan are waiting for urgent, effective and tangible measures to be taken soon," he said without elaborating. The violence has killed around 2,200 people, including some 400 members of the security forces, according to rights activists. Syrian authorities have blamed the bloodshed on armed gangs and Islamist myrmidons. Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Joudeh last week described the situation in Syria as "worrisome, unfortunate and sad." A Jordanian died of his wounds on Sunday after he was hit by sniper fire in the Syrian city of Homs, a hotbed of that county's anti-regime revolt, becoming the first officially reported Jordanian fatality in the unrest.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan shares Palestinian despondency on peace

2009-11-30

[Al Arabiya Latest] Outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip, despair at the failure of years of U.S.-led Middle East peacemaking is perhaps felt nowhere more keenly than in Jordan. "The Palestinians are cornered," said Taher al-Masri, a former Jordanian prime minister of Palestinian origin who is now deputy speaker of the kingdom's upper house of parliament. "They have to look for alternatives other than just calling for negotiations. It doesn't mean they have to go to war, but depending on the good faith of the Americans or Europeans or on a positive Israeli response has ended now," he added. Good -- reality is setting in. So they have three choices: starting a war they'd lose, terrorism, which doesn't seem to work anymore, or surrendering to the ebil juices and accepting the status quo. I imagine they'll choose dithering for another decade or several, instead. Jordan, a small aid-dependent country with many Palestinians among its 6 million people, has for years hitched itself to Washington in the hope that its U.S. ally would one day cajole Israel into accepting Arab demands for an end to occupation and the emergence of a Palestinian state in exchange for peace. The poor, disappointed darlings. The heart [urp] bleeds ... The peace treaty the late King Hussein signed with Israel in 1994 was never popular with his subjects and, 15 years on, even those who once backed the "peace process" now view it as futile. Well gosh, how many wars have they lost since they signed it, none? I'd say it paid out in spades. Not to worry, the Jordanian army has used the time well and is fully prepared to lose the next war they fight with the Israelis ... President Barack Obama's failure to secure his own demand that Israel stop building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is seen here as a humiliating sign that U.S. diplomacy can never achieve the far harder goal of a two-state solution. Yup. It's up to the Palestinians, now, to actually make their own peace, instead of having another surrender handed to them. Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Joudeh last week dismissed as "insufficient" a 10-month Israeli halt to some construction in West Bank settlements, excluding those in East Jerusalem. Obama's Cairo speech in June briefly raised hopes among some Arabs that the new president grasped their grievances and might adopt a less Israel-indulgent policy than his predecessor. A great many people are disappointed that President Obama did not turn out as their imaginations had painted him.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

One dead in Jordan tourist shooting

2006-09-04

A British tourist has been killed and six others wounded after a man opened fire on them in Amman. Witnesses said the man fired at least 12 bullets before he finished his ammunition and was overpowered by police and arrested. The attack took place on afternoon Monday in a crowded part of central Amman close to a Roman amphitheatre - an area popular with tourists. Two British people, a Dutch citizen, a New Zealander, a Dutchman and their Jordanian tour guide were wounded during the shooting, said Nasser Joudeh, the government spokesman. Jordanian officials said they were investigating whether the man acted on his own or belonged to a radical Islamist group. The shooting is the first attack in the pro-western kingdom since scores of people died in triple suicide bombings against luxury hotels claimed by al Qaeda last November. During a visit to the hospital where the wounded were being treated, the Jordanian prime minister, Marouf al-Bakheet, said: "We will ascertain in the next period whether this was a sole act or whether this individual is a member of a terrorist cell." The Jordanian interior minister, Eid al-Fayez, described the incident as a "cowardly terrorist attack, which we regret took place on Jordanian soil." Muhammad Jawad Ali, an Iraqi man who witnessed the shooting, said: "I was walking when I saw someone pull out a pistol from his pocket and start shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) and fire repeatedly. "Then I saw one tourist who appeared to be dead and three who were injured. They were in a group of seven. A woman told me they were tourists from New Zealand and England." The gunman has been identified as Nabil Ahmad, a Jordanian in his late thirties and a resident of the industrial town of Zarqa, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, Jordanian officials said. He is believed to have acted on his own.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan detains MPs for pro-Zarqawi sentiment

2006-06-12

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan detained four mainstream Islamist deputies for allegedly voicing sympathy for the slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, officials said on Sunday. The four deputies were questioned by the prosecutor general and detained over statements they gave in support of Jordanian militant Zarqawi, killed on Wednesday in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation helped by tip-offs from Jordanian intelligence. "They were held for professional questioning by the prosecutor general and detained," government spokesperson Nasser Joudeh told Reuters without elaborating. One of the deputies, Mohammed Abu Faris, had attended prayers for Zarqawi's soul during Friday prayers in the militant's birthplace in the industrial city of Zarqa, 25 km (16 miles) northeast of Amman, and called him a "martyr", witnesses said. The three other deputies in custody had visited his family in Zarqa and offered their condolences. "These deputies should have parliamentary immunity and this shows how much the authorities have regard for democracy," Zaki Bani Rusheid, the head of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the largest political bloc in the 110-member parliament whom the four deputies are members.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan detains MPs for pro-Zarqawi sentiment

2006-06-11

Jordan detained four mainstream Islamist deputies for allegedly voicing sympathy for the slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, officials said on Sunday. The four deputies were questioned by the prosecutor general and detained over statements they gave in support of Jordanian militant Zarqawi, killed on Wednesday in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation helped by tip-offs from Jordanian intelligence. "They were held for questioning by the prosecutor general and detained," government spokesperson Nasser Joudeh told Reuters without elaborating. One of the deputies, Mohammed Abu Faris, had attended prayers for Zarqawi's soul during Friday prayers in the militant's birthplace in the industrial city of Zarqa, 25 km (16 miles) northeast of Amman, and called him a "martyr," witnesses said. The three other deputies in custody had visited his family in Zarqa and offered their condolences. Zarqawi's family received hundreds of wellwishers who flocked to a tent set up near their home in the working class city to pay their respects. Born Ahmed Fadhil al-Khalayleh to a notable family that is part of the biggest tribe in Jordan, Zarqawi grew up in the dusty streets of Zarqa, where unemployment is high and Islamic militancy widespread. Jailed by Jordanian authorities for several years in the early 1990s, Zarqawi went on to fight U.S. forces in Iraq, where Osama bin Laden named him the "prince" of al Qaeda in Iraq. "These deputies should have parliamentary immunity and this shows how much the authorities have regard for democracy," Zaki Bani Rusheid, the head of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the largest political bloc in the 110-member parliament whom the four deputies are members. Jordan brands Zarqawi as a terrorist and says he is the mastermind behind the triple hotel bombings that killed 60 civilians last November.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan says its intelligence helped kill Zarqawi

2006-06-09

This has been reported elsewhere yesterday, but just in case you didn't know ... AMMAN - Jordanian intelligence helped in the operation that led to the killing of Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq Abu Musab Al Zarqawi on Thursday, a Jordanian spokesman said. “There has been early exchange of intelligence information with the United States that helped in the operation that killed Zarqawi,” government spokesman Nasser Joudeh told Reuters. “This has been an Iraqi operation,” Joudeh later told a news conference. “However, all parties concerned in pursuing Zarqawi have been cooperating in terms of intelligence over many months to try to locate him and Jordanian intelligence have been part of this.”

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan says arrested 20 Hamas activists in plot

2006-05-10

AMMAN - Jordan said on Wednesday it had arrested 20 Hamas activists in an alleged plot last month to stage attacks on its soil and was searching for new arms caches after it found armaments that included Iranian rocket launchers. Government spokesperson Nasser Joudeh told reporters latest interrogations of the Palestinian group’s members revealed the militant organisation had sought to recruit activists in Jordan for military training in Syria and Iran.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan awaits Palestinian delegation's visit to discuss arms smuggling

2006-05-02

Jordan said Monday it was awaiting a visit by a Palestinian security and political delegation to Amman to discuss with Hamas' smuggling of weapons into the Hashemite Kingdom. Government spokesman Nasser Joudeh told a news conference both sides were discussing a date for the delegation's visit. He said the Jordanian-Palestinian relations were not affected by the arms smuggling incident by Hamas. Joudeh said contacts were ongoing between the Amman government and the Palestinian Authority at all levels, including the Hamas-led government. He said investigation was underway over the smuggling of weapons, which were seized recently. He added that Jordan was awaiting the formation of the political and security delegation by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Joudeh said Jordan would continue supporting the Palestinian people at the political and humanitarian levels.

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Iraq

Falcons Brigade in talks with Jordanian government over hostage

2006-01-04

Iraqi militants are negotiating with the Jordanian government about the fate of a hostage they threatened to kill unless Amman freed a failed woman suicide bomber, Al Arabiya television reported on Tuesday. Al Arabiya said it had received a new video from the little-known group, the Falcons Brigade, in which the militants said they were holding talks with Jordan‘s government about embassy driver Mahmoud Saedat. Jordanian government spokesman Nasser Joudeh confirmed extensive efforts were underway to secure Saedat‘s speedy release, but declined to identify the groups contacted or say whether there was any direct contact with the kidnappers. "Contacts are on-going at all levels and there could be parallel to this some unofficial contacts at different levels, the details of which cannot be disclosed at this stage in order to ensure his safety," he told Reuters. "The government is sparing no effort and leaving no stone unturned with all the relevant authorities in Iraq in order to ensure his release," Joudeh added. The video was not aired by Al Arabiya, which said the militants had renewed their threat to kill Saedat and repeated their demand for Jordan to pull its diplomats out of Iraq. Saedat was kidnapped in Baghdad late last month and Al Arabiya showed a video of him appealing to his government to quit Iraq and free Sajida al-Rishawi, who said on Jordanian television last month that she had tried to blow herself up alongside her husband in hotel attacks in Amman. Al Arabiya had said the group set a three-day deadline for Rishawi‘s release. Jordan had said it would not give in to the kidnappers‘ demands, but said it was sparing no effort to release Saedat.

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Iraq

Jordanian's abductors want failed hotel bomber freed

2005-12-25

Abductors of a Jordanian embassy driver said they would kill him unless Jordan pulled its diplomats from Iraq and freed a failed woman suicide bomber held by in Jordan, Al Arabiya television said. A video issued by the little-known group Falcons Brigade showed a man identifying himself as Mahmoud Saedat, the driver kidnapped in Baghdad on Tuesday, as three masked militants stood behind him, holding rifles and a grenade launcher. One pointed a gun at Mr Saedat's head. The man appealed to Jordan to withdraw its diplomats from Iraq and free Sajida al-Rishawi, who said on Jordanian television last month that she had tried to blow herself up alongside her husband in hotel attacks in Amman. A Jordanian Government spokesman told Reuters his country would not give in to the kidnappers' demands but that intensive efforts were under way to secure Mr Saedat's release. "Jordan will not succumb to extortion whatever its nature but will not spare any effort to save the life of a Jordanian citizen," Nasser Joudeh told Reuters. "We call on the kidnappers whoever they are to release this Jordanian citizen without any preconditions." Al Arabiya said the group set a three-day deadline for Rishawi's release.

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