AMMAN: Jordan’s army said on Saturday it has foiled a plot to smuggle arms, drugs and “terrorists” through a disused oil pipeline along its border with Syria.
“The Jordanian armed forces were able... to thwart a plan to smuggle weapons, drugs and terrorists” through the pipeline, an official in the general command said in a statement.
“A group of terrorists and drug traffickers” had used a house near the Jordan-Syria border and the disused Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline) to “dig and prepare a series of tunnels for use in smuggling operations and to carry out terrorist attacks,” the official said.
Authorities have ordered the destruction of the tunnels and instructed army engineering units to unearth the pipeline to prevent other “smugglers and terrorists” from using it.
Tapline used to transport Saudi oil through Jordan, Syria’s Golan Heights — parts of which have been occupied by Israel since 1967 — onto Lebanon and the Mediterranean.
The 1,200-km pipeline was built in 1950 and links the Saudi oilfield of Abqaiq to the Mediterranean terminal of Zahrani, 40 km south of Beirut.
Oil transport through Tapline to Lebanon stopped in 1981 because of the Lebanese civil war.
Jordan foils militant pipeline smuggling plot, says army
Jordan foils militant pipeline smuggling plot, says army
Hamas says will give up arms to a Palestinian authority ‘if occupation ends’
- “We accept the deployment of UN forces as a separation force, tasked with monitoring the borders and ensuring compliance with the ceasefire in Gaza,” Hayya says
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Hamas said Saturday it was ready to hand over its weapons in the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian authority governing the territory on the condition that the Israeli army’s occupation ends.
“Our weapons are linked to the existence of the occupation and the aggression,” Hamas chief negotiator and its Gaza chief Khalil Al-Hayya said in a statement, adding: “If the occupation ends, these weapons will be placed under the authority of the state.” Asked by AFP, Hayya’s bureau said he was referring to a sovereign and independent Palestnian state.
“We accept the deployment of UN forces as a separation force, tasked with monitoring the borders and ensuring compliance with the ceasefire in Gaza,” Hayya added, signalling his group’s rejection of the deployment of an international force in the Strip whose mission would be to disarm it.
