Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan boosts border forces

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http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/jordan-boosts-border-forces-amid-isis-threat-from-iraq-syria
Jordan boosts border forces amid ISIS threat from Iraq, Syria

By: The Associated Press, January 19, 2017 (Photo Credit: Raad Adayleh/AP)
ZARQA, Jordan — A senior Jordanian military commander says the kingdom faces a growing threat to its border as Islamic State extremists in neighboring Iraq and Syria are being dislodged from their strongholds by military offensives.

Brig. Gen. Sami Kafawin told reporters on Thursday he expects some ISIS fighters, increasingly on the defensive, to make their way to southern Syria and Jordan's border. Kafawin commands the border guard forces.

He says there has been a "big difference" in threat levels over the last three years and that nearly half of Jordan's military personnel and resources have been deployed along the Iraqi and Syrian border — a sharp increase from before the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian conflict.

He says Jordan is deploying "more and more forces" at the border to safeguard against ISIS.

 

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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1041731/middle-east

THNEIBEH, Jordan: Jordan is deploying more forces to face a growing threat to its borders, as Daesh extremists in neighboring Iraq and Syria are being dislodged from some strongholds, the commander of the kingdom’s border guards said Thursday.

The Daesh group, which seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, is under intense military pressure in both countries and has lost significant territory in recent months. US-backed Iraqi forces recently announced the recapture of the eastern side of Mosul, the northern city where they have been waging a three-month-old offensive.

Brig. Gen. Sami Kafawin, commander of Jordan’s border forces, said he expects some of the retreating Daesg fighters to make their way to southern Syria, close to Jordan.


Daesh-affiliated groups already hold positions in southern Syria, some a few hundred meters from the border, the commander said, ahead of a tour of military positions along the western-most stretch of Jordan’s border with Syria.
One such position, Thneibeh, faces the small Syrian village of Qusair, across the Yarmouk River.

Qusair is controlled by an Daesh-affiliated group, said Col. Rami Sondos, a border official. Another Syrian village, separated from Qusair by a deep ravine, is run by Syrian rebels.

The Syrian groups mostly fight each other, trading fire between the two villages, as the Jordanian troops observe.

During Thursday’s visit, a soldier perched on a lookout in a watchtower monitored the villages through large, mounted binoculars. A camera used at night can detect movement eight kilometers (five miles) into Syria, while cameras mounted at other border posts have a reach of 20 kilometers, Sondos said.

Infiltration attempts from Syria, including by drug smugglers suspected of ties to the militants, have so far been one of the biggest threats, border officials said.

Kafawin said that if more Daesh fighters reach southern or eastern Syria, “we expect everything to be armed, to be dangerous, to become a real threat to the Jordan borders,” including possible car bombs and suicide attacks.
Jordan, which is part of a US-led anti-Daesh military coalition, has been “deploying more and more forces to the borders,” currently close to half the military’s personnel and resources, the commander said.


This is a sharp increase from before the 2011 outbreak of the Syria conflict, he added.

 

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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1097496/middle-east

AMMAN: Jordan’s air force has shot down an unidentified drone near the border with war-torn Syria, the military said on Wednesday.

“F-16 fighter jets from the royal air force downed a drone near the northern border with Syria,” an air force official said, reading from a statement.

Air force staff were gathering the debris of the aircraft in the northern province of Mafraq to analyze them, he said.
The kingdom shares a desert border of more than 370 kilometers (230 miles) with Syria, where a six-year war has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions.

The UN refugee agency says it has registered more than 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan since the war broke out in 2011. Amman says it hosts 1.3 million Syrian refugees.

Jordan shot down an identified a drone in Mafraq in 2014.

The kingdom is part of the US-led coalition fighting the Daesh jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/jordan-kills-2-infiltrators-from-syria/829963

Jordanian border guards shot dead two people trying to infiltrate into the kingdom from neighboring Syria, according to the Jordanian military on Tuesday.

An army statement, citing a military source, said border guards had foiled an attempt to smuggle an amount of drugs on Monday by two people trying to cross border from Syria into Jordan.

The source said the forces had applied the rules of engagement taken in such cases, killing the two infiltrators.

Jordan shares a 375-kilometer border with next-door Syria, which fell into civil war in 2011.

There are more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Jordan.

 

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A Jordanian soldier stands guard near the northern Jordan-Syrian border. – AP
http://saudigazette.com.sa/world/mena/jordanian-forces-fight-off-border-attack/#

Amman — Forces from the Jordanian Army were able to fight off an attack on outposts opposite Al-Rukban camp near its borders with Syria.

An official source in the General Command of the Jordanian Armed Forces said that three motorcyclists, traveling from Syrian territory to Jordan, tried to target the front positions of the border guards near Rukban camp on Saturday morning.

Clashes between the militants and Jordanian border patrol guards ensued, after which the three gunmen were killed. An officer was slightly injured and received medical care and his condition is now stable.

A car bomb exploded in the sprawling Rukban refugee camp last month near the border with Jordan on causing injuries. The blast came two days after a double car bomb attack at the same site Daesh (the so-called IS) has previously claimed responsibility of the attacks near the camp. – Agencies

 

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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1113411/middle-east

AMMAN: Jordan says its border guards have killed five suspected infiltrators approaching the kingdom's border from Syria in a pickup truck and two motorcycles.

The military said in a statement Tuesday that the incident took place near the spot where Jordan, Syria and Iraq meet.
Jordan has been on alert for possible infiltrations by Islamic State group extremists who seized territories in Syria and Iraq in 2014. In recent months, Jordan expressed concern that U.S.-backed offensives against IS will push some of the militants closer to the kingdom's border.

The army said nine vehicles approached Jordan from Syria in the past three days, and border guards opened fire to hold them back. The army says that in the latest incident, troops fired on a pickup truck and two motorcycles, killing five.

 

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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1113741/middle-east

AMMAN: Jordan’s army said on Sunday its border guards killed five people who were approaching its frontier from Tanf, a Syrian desert town where US special forces training opposition fighters are based.

The town has been a flashpoint in recent weeks, as militias backed by Iran have tried to get near the US garrison, prompting US coalition jets to strike back.

Tanf lies near the strategic Damascus-Baghdad highway that was once a major weapons supply route for Iranian weapons into Syria.

The Jordanian army said it destroyed a car and two motorbikes in the incident.

The army statement did not give any details of the identity of the men and whether they were smugglers or militants in the area where Jordan’s northeastern borders meet both Iraq and Syria.

The statement, however, said that before the shooting, a convoy of nine cars had approached from the Tanf area but fled after the army fired warning shots.

Daesh militants launched a suicide attack last April on the heavily defended base in which the Pentagon said an estimated 20-30 Daesh fighters were involved. US jets bombed the militants in the hit-and-run attack.

Delays in Jordan trial

A Jordanian military court says it will appoint a lawyer for a Jordanian soldier charged with murder in the shooting deaths of three US military trainers.

The court was to hear the case Sunday, but the defendant, 1st Sgt. Marik Al-Tuwayha, appeared without a lawyer.
Judge Mohammed Afif said he would appoint a defense lawyer and set the next hearing for Tuesday.

The US Army Green Berets were killed when their convoy came under fire at the gate of an air base in southern Jordan in November. Jordan, a close US military ally, initially suggested the Americans triggered the shooting by disobeying orders of Jordanian troops. Jordan later withdrew this claim.

Afif has said the shootings were a criminal matter and not linked to terrorism.

 

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Reuters | Published — Thursday 10 August 2017
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1142606/middle-east
BEIRUT/AMMAN: The Syrian army and its allies seized control of a 30 km (19 mile) stretch of Syria’s border with Jordan from rebels in an attack on Thursday, two rebel groups said.

A military media unit run by Hezbollah, a close ally of the Syrian government, said the army and its allies had gained control over all checkpoints and border posts on the border in Sweida, one of four Syrian provinces that border Jordan.

Rebel groups, some of them backed by Western and Arab states, still control much of Syria’s southwestern frontier with Jordan and Israel.

Sweida province was not included in a US-Russian brokered cease-fire that took effect in nearby areas of the southwest in July.

Said Saef, spokesman for the Western-backed rebel group Martyr Ahmed Abdo brigade, said Thursday’s attack came from two sides in Sweida’s east countryside. “Most of the eastern Sweida countryside is now in the hands of the regime,” he added.

The army had advanced to the border and retaken posts it abandoned in the early years of the conflict when rebels took over large parts of south western Syria.

“They are now on the Jordanian border and back to outposts they had evacuated early in the conflict,” said Saef.
Another rebel spokesman said the army gains were helped by a sudden pull-back by Jaish Al-Ashair rebel group, which is backed by Jordan and had been responsible for patrolling that stretch of the border.