AMMAN: Some 900 US military personnel, including dozens staying on from joint military drills, are in Jordan to bolster its defense and prevent the Syrian civil war from spreading across its border, Jordan’s prime minister said Saturday.
It was the first time a Jordanian official disclosed publicly the numbers of US troops in the Arab kingdom, sent there in recent weeks for military exercises and other deployments.
Abdullah Ensour told reporters Saturday that 200 of the personnel were experts training Jordanians to handle a chemical attack. The remaining 700 are manning a Patriot missile defense system and F-16 fighter jets which Washington deployed this month in case the Syrian war worsens.
“The number of US forces in Jordan is small and not intended to be in preparation for a war on Syria,” Ensour said.
Jordan is concerned its larger northern neighbor would use chemical weapons against Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and other neighboring countries, or that the stockpile may fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda or other militants if Syria’s President Bashar Assad loses control.
Jordan hosts the largest number of more than a half million displaced Syrians, with an equal number sheltered in Turkey and Lebanon.
Earlier this month, Washington relocated one or two patriot missile batteries to Jordan from an unspecified country in the Persian Gulf, and also deployed a squadron of 12 to 24 F-16 fighter jets.
The deployment coincided with annual military exercises, dubbed Eager Lion 2013, which wrapped up earlier this week. Supervised by the US, the drills brought together more than 8,000 forces from 19 countries.
Ensour said Jordan was caught between a rock and a hard place in the Syrian crisis, which began in March 2011 with peaceful protests and later plunged into civil war.
“If the war continues, it’s a problem, and if it ends with the collapse of the regime, we also have a problem,” he said, adding that the fall of Assad’s regime would leave a “vacuum, whereby attacks and conflicts would persist.”
“This is why we have been calling for a political solution to the Syrian crisis,” he added.
Jordan says 900 US troops boost defense in country
Jordan says 900 US troops boost defense in country
Israel army kills West Bank attacker who tried to run over troops
- The Palestinian civil affairs authority named the man as 20-year-old Qais Sami Jaser Allan, adding that he “was shot by the occupation forces between the towns of Einabus and Awarta”
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said its troops shot dead a man who tried to run over a group of soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
The incident occurred in Einabus in the northern West Bank, the military said.
“A short while ago, a report was received regarding a terrorist who attempted to run over IDF (Israeli army) soldiers operating in the area of Einabus,” the military said.
“In response, the soldiers fired at the terrorist and eliminated him.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it rescued three people after the Israeli army opened fire near Einabus on a vehicle with Palestinian license plates.
“Two of the wounded were shot, and one of them is in critical condition. The third was injured as a result of being beaten,” the Red Crescent said.
The Palestinian civil affairs authority named the man as 20-year-old Qais Sami Jaser Allan, adding that he “was shot by the occupation forces between the towns of Einabus and Awarta.”
The incident came just days after a Palestinian from the West Bank ran over an Israeli in his sixties with his vehicle and later stabbed an 18-year-old girl to death in northern Israel.
The perpetrator was killed during the attack.
Following that incident on Friday, the military conducted a two-day operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya from where the attacker came, detaining several residents including his father and brothers.
Since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, violence has also surged in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the territory, including many militants as well as dozens of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian health ministry.
According to official Israeli figures, at least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have also been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the same period in the West Bank.
