Security forces arrested 17 men in November who planned coordinated attacks around the country, including shopping malls and mosques
Jordan’s security forces have foiled an Islamic State plot to carry out a series of coordinated and large-scale attacks aimed at sowing chaos in the Hashemite kingdom, Jordan’s official news outlet Petra reported Monday.
The kingdom’s security forces arrested 17 men suspected of being Islamic State members who were planning a number of “coordinated attacks with the aim of shaking the country’s security, and sowing chaos and fear in its citizens,” the report said. The arrests took place in November 2017.
Interrogations of the alleged Islamic State members revealed, according to the report, that they had carried out reconnaissance of possible targets for attacks, including security, commercial, media and religious centers.
The cell planned to fund its attacks by carrying out bank robberies in the towns of Russeifa and Zarqa and also through stealing and selling cars, the report said.
The cell planned to manufacture explosives using materials available on the open market.
The 17 members of the cell were charged by Jordan’s Prosecutor General on a number of counts related to terrorism.
Since IS took over swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014, Jordan, a key US ally, has used its own air force and allowed US-led coalition forces to use its bases to carry out sorties against the group.
In December 2016, Islamic State gunmen killed 10 people in Karak, a tourist destination known for one of the biggest Crusader castles in the region, around 120 kilometers (70 miles) south of the capital Amman. It marked the first time IS claimed an attack on a civilian site in Jordan, a spot popular with tourists. A Canadian woman and two local residents were among 10 people killed.
The Hashemite kingdom has managed to foil a number of Islamic state attacks in its borders in recent years, avoiding repeated episodes of mass violence similar to those caused by the terror group in neighboring countries.
A string of defeats at the hands of coalition-backed campaigns in Syria and Iraq as well as a Russian-backed assault by Syrian government forces have brought the jihadist group’s “caliphate” to the edge of collapse.
Agencies contributed to this report.
Correction: Singapore makes exceptions for medical chewing gum. Seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore
I can just see the slogan now: “Chewing Gum doesn’t kill people…”
@Michael S.
But you mentioned the Weathermen and SLA, we could add Black LIves Matter and Antifa.
The Supreme Court unleashed the gates of hell when they rendered the Smith Act toothless in 1957. None of these would have ever gotten off the ground but for that. see:
https://www.britannica.com/event/Smith-Act
@ Michael S:
My grandfather worked as a lawyer for the NY Transit Authority, then the NY Board of Transit, in the 1950’s. When I went to Paralegal School, I found a couple of his cases in which he was assisting the Prosecution. One was an especially serious case of a man accused of allegedly vandalizing a gumball machine in the subway. Quel Horreur! In Singapore, possession of chewing gum is a felony. Another fairly peaceful place if you don’t fall afoul of the regime.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
In my younger days, Sebastien, I would not have thought that what you said would be taken seriously (about “arresting plotters not being connected to a nation’s stability”). That was before we used National Guard helicopters to shoot at our own citizens at Waco in ’93; and later, when we started strip searches and pat-downs at our airports.
In earlier times, arrests of plotters like the SLA and the Weathermen were an indication that society was breaking down. That just goes to show, how far we’ve fallen. “Happy Days”, move over. Hello, “American Horror Story”.
@ Ted Belman:
How does arresting plotters say anything about the stability of a regime, one way or another? Practically every government in the world arrests plotters all the time. The FBI has stopped thousands of attempts and missed a few since 9/11. Israel’s government is stable despite frequent terror attacks. The only countries with few to no terror attacks are the ones that have few Muslims, barely tolerated, and allow no new ones in, like Bhutan, Japan, and Switzerland.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The message here is that the monarchy is unstable. That’s the same monarchy that Israel relies on to keep the border between Jordan and Israel quiet..
Thus since he is unstable then we might as well replace him with Mudar Zahran who will benefit Israel in ways that the king doesn’t.
So what? Is that supposed to suggest that we should support the Jordanian regime? Isis just declared war on Hamas.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/islamic-state-in-sinai-declares-war-on-hamas-in-gruesome-execution-video/
Applying the same sort of reasoning, should we then support Isis?
Or conversely,
After reading that attacks from Sinai attributed to Hamas have really been coming from Isis, should we then support Hamas?
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/08/israel-egypt-hamas-cooperation-security-islamic-state-sinai.html
It’s one thing to tactically play enemies off against one another, here and there, but to actually support any of them, including the Jordanian or PA usurper regimes?
Please.