AMMAN: Jordan’s government has halted a controversial rise in fuel prices after a week of mass street protests led to a dramatic intervention by King Abdullah yesterday.
Gasoline prices are subject to regular review by the government and were due to increase significantly this month, following a smaller rise in May. But hundreds of angry people chanting anti-government slogans descended on the prime minister’s office late on Thursday night, forcing the king to step in and attempt to defuse tensions.
The state news agency Petra quoted Prime Minister Hani Mulki as saying King Abdullah had ordered the gas price rise to be reversed.
While the king’s intervention brought a brief period of calm following Friday prayers, many Jordanians expect the civil unrest to continue. Last Wednesday thousands of people took to the streets to protest against planned tax hikes demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Rauf Habash, a political activist and tour operator, told Arab News he was planning to take part in a large protest on Friday night calling for major changes in the way government policies are implemented.
“It is not about fuel prices — this is a protest against the policies of the government. There is a big gap between the people and the government,” he said.
Frustration has been mounting in much of the country since the government introduced plans to Parliament last month to double the income-tax base following sharp sales tax rises earlier this year. The increases are a condition of a three-year IMF economic program to reduce public debt and generate more state revenue.
The government has defended the proposals by saying only 4 percent of Jordanians pay personal income tax. However, many people are angry and say the government is out of touch with their daily struggles.
Haytham Erefei, a political activist and lawyer, told Arab News the protests are not inspired by any political party or movement but result from the widespread disenchantment felt by Jordan’s youth.
“Raising the price of fuel by more than 5 percent was a mistake,” he said. “Our officials are totally oblivious to the way people feel about their decisions.”
Before the king’s intervention yesterday, the price of unleaded 90 octane gasoline rose from 0.815 Jordanian dinars ($1.15) per liter to 0.860 dinars per liter. Diesel and kerosene prices went up by 4.8 percent, from 0.615 dinars per liter to 0.645 dinars per liter.
In the wake of the recent protests, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Action Front has called on the government to resign and for new parliamentary elections to take place.
Meanwhile, a number of MPs are due to meet on Saturday to submit their resignations if the government fails to withdraw the income tax law. The new law lowers the minimum taxable income to 8,000 dinars for an individual and 16,000 dinars for a family.
Khalil Atiyeh, one of 13 parliamentarians who are set to step down, told Arab News the rise in fuel prices is just one of the issues causing public discontent.
“The government has failed to read people’s anger and frustration. We want to make a principled stand in the hope that the king will understand this is serious,” he said.
Jordan king’s intervention brings calm after protests
Jordan king’s intervention brings calm after protests
- The new law lowers the minimum taxable income to 8,000 dinars for an individual and 16,000 dinars for a family
- The government has failed to read people’s anger and frustration
Israel says it has launched ‘broad wave’ of strikes on Iran, as Tehran widens its response across the region
- US military says 17 Iranian navy ships destroyed, struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran thus far
- US and Israeli attacks have killed 787 people in Iran: Iranian Red Crescent
JERUSALEM/DUBAI/TEHRAN: Israel early Wednesday launched new attacks on Iran as the US military said it has hit nearly 2,000 targets inside the Islamic republic, which tried to impose a cost by expanding a missile and drone barrage across the region.
With global energy prices on the rise, President Donald Trump said the US Navy was ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, the vital chokepoint into the Gulf that Iran has threatened to seal off.
Israel’s military said it launched a “broad wave of strikes” after midnight across Iran, which in the hours before had launched three separate missile barrages at Israel, causing mild injuries to a woman in Tel Aviv.
The US military has destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including a submarine, and struck nearly 2,000 targets in Iran, the commander of the US Central Command said on Tuesday.
“Today, there is not a single Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, or Gulf of Oman,” US Central Command’s Brad Cooper said in a video posted to X.
Cooper said the US military has “severely degraded Iran’s air defenses” and taken out hundreds of ballistic missiles, launchers and drones.
The video showed missiles and jets launching from US ships, and targets exploding on the ground.
Cooper noted that Iran has launched over 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones in retaliation.
But he said the US is “hunting” Iran’s last remaining mobile ballistic missile launchers to eliminate their “lingering launch capability.”
Cooper said the operation has involved more than 50,000 troops, 200 fighter jets, two aircraft carriers and bombers, and “more capability is on the way.”
“We’ve just begun,” Cooper said, adding that the US military is targeting “all the things that can shoot at us.”
“These forces bring a massive amount of firepower, representing the largest buildup by the US in the Middle East in a generation,” he said in the video message, describing the first day’s barrage as bigger than the so-called “shock and awe” against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003.
Iran‘s response
The US and Israeli attacks have killed 787 people in Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent, a toll that could not be independently confirmed.
Iran vowed to inflict a heavy price in retaliation. Drones struck adjacent the US consulate in Dubai, starting a fire but inflicting no casualties, and against the US military base at Al-Udeid in Qatar.
The attacks came a day after strikes on the US embassies in Riyadh and Kuwait City and on a US air base in Bahrain.
“We are saying to the enemy that if it decides to hit our main centers, we will hit all economic centers in the region,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard General Ebrahim Jabbari said.
Iranian attacks have killed at least nine people and wounded dozens in the Gulf region, according to various reports quoting local authorities.
Among the latest death was an 11-year-old girl who was killed after shrapnel fell in a residential area in Kuwait City, health authorities said Wednesday.
The Kuwait army said in a statement the shrapnel fell over a house and left casualties while forces were intercepting “several hostile aerial targets” over the country.
The Health Ministry said in a separate statement that the child died of her wounds at the hospital.
The child’s mother and three other relatives were injured and being treated at the hospital, it said.
Vessel hit in Gulf of Oman
A vessel was hit by a projectile early Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman off the United Arab Emirates, an agency of the UK military said.
There were no reported casualties.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said the vessel was struck 8 miles east of Fujairah, one of the UAE’s seven emirates.
The attack damaged the vessel’s steel plating.
No fire or water intake was reported, it said.
Iran hits US embassies
The US State Department said Tuesday it’s preparing military and charter flights for Americans who want to leave the Middle East. Several other countries also arranged evacuation flights for their citizens.
An attack from two drones on the US Embassy in Riyadh caused a “limited fire,” according to the Saudi Arabian Defense Ministry, and the embassy urged Americans to avoid the compound.
An Iranian drone struck a parking lot outside the US consulate in Dubai, sparking a small fire, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Washington. He said all personnel were accounted for.
The United Arab Emirates said it has intercepted the vast majority of more than 1,000 Iranian missile and drone attacks against it.
US embassies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Lebanon said they were closed to the public.
The US State Department ordered the evacuation of non-emergency personnel and family in Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. And US citizens were urged to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries, though many were stranded because of airspace closures.
The US military has confirmed six deaths of American service members.
Four of the American soldiers killed were identified as Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Sgt, Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa, who received a posthumous promotion in rank. They were assigned to the Iowa-based 103rd Sustainment Command.
Ghost town
In Tehran, residents who have not fled remained shut away in their homes for fear of the US-Israeli bombardment.
The Iranian capital is normally home to around 10 million people, but in recent days “there are so few people that you’d think no one ever lived here,” said Samireh, a 33-year-old nurse.
Authorities had previously urged people to leave the city, and police officers, armed security forces and armored vehicles have been stationed at main junctions, carrying out random checks on vehicles.
In the more upmarket north of Tehran, the meowing of cats and chirping of birds replaced the usual din of traffic jams.
Iranian authorities said a strike on a school in the city of Minab on the first day of the war killed more than 150 people.
