Tourist Stabbings in Jordan: The TRUE STORY, a crime, NOT a terrorist attack

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1. After reading several reports of the incident in the British press, I noticed some strange discrepancies in the reports. One report (I think it was in the Telegraph, hat tip Bear) said that the attacker was waring a mask during the attack. It implied that he had suddenly appeared on the scene and immediately started attacking people. But the other reports said nothing about a mask.

   One report quoted a tourist guide as saying that he and his fellow touraist guides had subdued and disarmed the attacker before the police arrived, and that he submitted to arrest peacefully when the police arrived fifteen minutes later. But this seems contradicted by the reports of Jordanian Health Ministry spokesmen that police were among the injured.

   None of the other reports support Mudar Zahran’s story that the attack was preceded by an argument between the stabber and a policemen at the scene of the crime. Mudar’s casualty figures are lower than any of the other reports.

   The one thing all the reports seem to agree on is that the police made no effort to secure the crime scene. Several witnesses said that the police made no effort to prevent people from entering the archeological site or approaching close to the “action” even while the crime was under way.
   This would seem to suggest that the Jordanian police lack even the most elelmentary training in basic police procedures.

2. Incident also might be a sign of generally explosive, angry social climate in Jordan, which results in random explosions of violence. There does seem to be an increase in violence in Jordan, reflecting widespread feelings of discontnet that are not always rationally directed. Of course we have that in the States too.

3. @ Bear Klein: I stand corrected, Bear. What did the Hebrew press have to say about this incident?

   I think it is fair to say that the American press and the British press didn’t give the story very prominent coverage. Neither did the Jerusalem Post.

   Perhaps, however, the event didn’t require much coverage because it doesn’t seem to have been politically or religiously motivated. Still, it is an example of the ineptitude of the Jordanian police, and why the police in Jordan are not respected. The police didn’t even close of the crime scene from the public, or preserve it for forensic analysis.

4. Hebrew Press in Israel is way larger and better than its English Press. Which is natural as ~75% of Israelis are native Hebrew speakers.

   That said the JPOST did report this story.

   Three Mexicans, one Swiss wounded in stabbing at Jordan …
   https://www.jpost.com › Breaking-News › Injured-in-Jordan-stabbing-were…
   5 days ago – Three Mexican tourists and one Swiss were wounded along with four locals in Jordan on Wednesday when a man went on a stabbing rampage in Jerash, a major tourist destination near ancient Roman ruins, the health minister said. Four of those injured had moderate to serious wounds and .

5. Tourists were among the eight people wounded in a knife attack at the famed archeological site of Jerash in northern Jordan.

   Four tourists – three Mexicans and a Swiss woman – were stabbed on Wednesday, along with a Jordanian tour guide and a security officer who tried to stop the assailant, public security directorate spokesman Amer Sartawi said.

   The attack took place around noon local time at the Roman ruins of Jerash, a popular attraction 30 miles from the capital Amman.

   The health ministry confirmed that eight people had been wounded, with Sartawi saying earlier that they had “been transported to hospital for treatment”.

   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/06/spanish-tourists-among-several-stabbed-jerash-attack-jordan/

6. I was wrong to write that here was no foreign coverage of this event. THis is the Guardian’s report of it. I have no way of knowing how accurate it is. But it suggests that the stabbing incident was on a larger scale than Mudar presents, it and that up to eight people were injured, including four, not eight, tourists. The tourists did not include any Israelis. Three Mexicans, on Swiss wounded –one is “serious” and the other three in light to moderate” condition. The reporter does suggest that the police’s handling of the incident was incompetent, that the knifeman was poor, suffered from metal illness, but was not often violent, and that there was no evidence of a political motive. All that accords pretty well with Mudar’s commentary.

   Jordan
   Jordan attack: foreign tourists among eight stabbed in Jerash
   Victims at popular destination reported to include people from Mexico and Switzerland
   Michael Safi in Amman
   @safimichael
   Wed 6 Nov 2019 09.15 EST First published on Wed 6 Nov 2019 05.54 EST
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   Jerash
   Roman ruins in Jerash, Jordan. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
   Eight people including four foreign tourists were stabbed on Wednesday inside the ancient Roman city of Jerash, one of Jordan’s most popular sites for visitors.

   Authorities said the victims included tourists from Mexico and Switzerland. Police sources told the Guardian that three of those stabbed were Mexican and one was Swiss. The others included two Jordanian police officers, a tour guide and a driver.

   A Mexican tourist and a Jordanian tour guide were flown to Amman with serious injuries but their conditions were soon upgraded to stable, the Jordanian health minister, Saad Jaber, told reporters. The rest had injuries “between moderate and slight,” he said.

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   The perpetrator, a 22-year old, was arrested at the scene and was believed to have acted alone, sources said.

   He came from a nearby Palestinian refugee camp housing about 35,000 people and used to wash cars at a station on its borders, said Basheer Abu Serdanah, a resident of the camp who knew the man.

   “If he did it, we are all in shock,” Serdanah said. “He was a shy, normal guy. If you talked to him he’d put his eyes to the ground.”

   A group representing residents of the camp released a statement on Wednesday saying they “denounce and condemn the terrorist act carried out of by one of these cowards in Jerash.”

   Natalie, an American tourist who witnessed the attack, said she and her tour group were close to the Roman city’s hippodrome shortly before 11.16am local time when they saw a large group and heard a commotion.

   She said that they realised there were people bleeding: “It looked like there had been a full-on fight. And then I saw this guy’s hand just split open and I knew somebody had stabbed people.”

   She said local guides told her and her group that the attack had been carried out by “a psycho” who had been arrested and that the rest of the site was now safe.

   “We walked a bit farther down towards the columns and there was a machete lying there,” she said. “There were no police lines set up or anything at the site. People were just walking around and you could walk straight through all the blood.”

   She said she counted at least four victims and said three of them appeared to be severely injured.

   A video purported to have been shot in the aftermath of the stabbings showed a woman lying face-first on the ground while others pressed a scarf to an apparent wound in her back.

   An alarmed woman was heard calling for assistance in Spanish, shouting: “There’s been a stabbing. They’ve got a knife! Please help him here! Please!”

   Another man sat nearby with a bloodied leg, and bloodstains covered the ground around them.

   Jerash is home to one of the world’s best-preserved Roman cities and is a major attraction for tourists who are a lifeline for the Jordanian economy.

   Tourism contributes about 10% of Jordan’s GDP. Visitors significantly declined after the outbreak of the civil war in neighbouring Syria and with the resumption of conflict in Iraq, but has recovered in the past three years.

   The kingdom is politically stable and has a low crime rate but contributed one of the highest shares per capita of fighters to Isis, with a surge in terrorist incidents recorded since 2015.

   Among the most deadliest was a shooting spree by Isis militants in the town of Karak in December 2016 that killed a dozen people including a Canadian tourist. The attack ended with a siege inside a Crusader castle in the area.

   Sam Jones in Madrid contributed to this report

7. This is the first I’ve heard about an attack on tourists in Jordan. Were they Israelis? How badly were they injured? Did any of them die? One problem with trying to figure out what is going on in Jordan is that Mudar Zahran is the only person who reports on events there, in English or English translation, other than the officially sanctioned Jordanian press. Of course, Mudar approaches events from the point of view of his political objectives, which makes it difficult to know if his reports are complete and 100% accurate. I think he is an honest man and reporter, but inevitably he sees things through his own lens.

   What is more important is the failure of the Israeli press and the Western presses to report on what is going on in Jordan at all. THat is shocking.

8. So, who attacked the tourists?